Texas Officials Plan to ‘Seize’ Land to Make Space for High-Speed Trains

Lawmakers in Texas plan to engage the powers of eminent domain, meaning land will be taken from property owners to build the first high-speed rail connecting Houston and Dallas, Texas.

You may have heard of the plans to build a 240-mile route between Houston and Dallas, Texas. If you're unfamiliar with high-speed passenger trains, they go over 200 miles per hour.

You can imagine how much of a game-changer this can be for commuters. We're talking zipping between the two major Texas cities in under 90 minutes.

At the same time, any time Texas lawmakers plan to use the sometimes unpopular eminent domain power, some property owners may become frustrated.

While the rumors have been around for a while now, a proposal was discussed last Thursday 'during a meeting of the Regional Transportation Council, an independent policy body of the North Central Texas Council of Governments,' according to a story from Newsweek.

If officials move forward with the proposal, this would be quite a boost in moving the high-speed rail project further down the track, so to speak.

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A draft of project priorities revealed that a prerequisite to moving the project forward would mean a 'statewide high-speed rail authority' would need to be created. The draft stated counties and cities in Texas would need to be provided with 'expanded tools for land use control' to support 'growth needs' for the project.

Enter eminent domain authority. 

In the Texas Landowner's Bill of Rights, Eminent Domain is defined as 'the legal authority that certain entities are granted that allows those entities to take private property for a public use.'

The state would need to be able to access land from some private landowners in order to move the project forward and new corridors and roadways are developed to support the effort.

Landowners would be compensated for the property taken at market value.

What is your opinion? Are you in support of the new High-speed rail train that would connect Dallas and Houston, Texas?

Share your thoughts with me at tara.holley@townsquaremedia.com.