The Chron is none too pleased with the way Texas fared with federal funds for high speed rail.
Texas Department of Transportation spokesman Chris Lippincott stated the obvious: Texas needs to have more plans in that “shovel-ready” shape. Lippincott says the near shutout in federal funding was “not a surprise.”
It certainly surprised us. We had assumed that Texas’ business of making its case before the federal bureaucracy was being handled capably and almost routinely. That was the impression given on a visit here awhile back by members of the Texas High-Speed Rail Authority, a nonprofit group composed mostly of former public officeholders.
On the merits, Texas has an utterly compelling case for high-speed rail connecting Houston with Dallas-Fort Worth and the Austin-San Antonio area. That is what makes this failure to lead, to get organized, however you want to describe it, such a vexation.
I think we all get what the problem was. The path forward, that’s a harder thing to figure out. I’ll say again, the necessary first step is new leadership for Texas, but I’m not laboring under the illusion that that’s a sufficient step. Still, if we don’t take that first step, we can’t get anywhere else.