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Texas Gets $15 Million for High-Speed Rail

The U.S. Transportation Department has granted $15 million to study a high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.
Image courtesy flickr.com/loudtiger
The U.S. Transportation Department has granted $15 million to study a high-speed rail line between Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

The U.S. Department of Transportation announced $2 billion worth of funding today to expand high-speed intercity rail travel.  $15 million of that is coming to Texas.

The funding will go toward engineering and environmental work on a high-speed rail corridor between Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston.  Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood told reporters that the investments will "create jobs, spur economic development and boost manufacturing in their communities."  None of the funding announced today included money for a proposed rail project linking San Antonio with Austin.

Most of the funding—$795 million—went to improving rail infrastructure in the Northeast Corridor, between Boston and Washington, D.C.

Ian Crawford joined KUT as News Editor in 2008, after spending over four years as a reporter/anchor at KLBJ Radio in Austin. He began his broadcasting career while still in high school in Southern Oregon. During high school and college at the University of Oregon, he worked at times as a reporter, news anchor, sports play-by-play reporter, music host and commercial producer before moving to Texas in 2003.