Dallas to Houston bullet train lives on with court ruling

Texas Central Railway can use eminent domain to take land for its proposed high-speed train between Dallas and Houston, the Texas Supreme Court ruled.

The court, which has usually ruled in favor of property owners, decided 5-3 in favor of Texas Central Railway, the Dallas-based company that’s planning the project, according to the Dallas Business Journal.

Opponents of the controversial $30 billion project had said they thought the project had reached the end of the line last week when Texas Central CEO Carlos Aguliar resigned. Months before the Texas Supreme Court took up the case, Texas Central had also laid off most of its staff.

Even though the Federal Railroad Administration in September 2020 approved Texas Central’s route through 11 Texas counties with a stop near College Station, the project faced opposition from Republican members of Texas’ Congressional delegation and organized and politically astute land owners with property on the train’s proposed 240-mile route.

In 2019, a Leon County property owner sued Texas Central, challenging the company’s authority to use eminent domain to take land for the project.

The court’s majority said their decision in siding with Texas Central focused narrowly on the issue of eminent domain, not about the merits of the bullet train project.

“At the outset, it is important to recognize what this case is about and what it is not about. The case involves the interpretation of statutes relating to eminent domain; it does not ask us to opine about whether high-speed rail between Houston and Dallas is a good idea or whether the benefits of the proposed rail service outweigh its detriments,” Justice Debra Lehrmann wrote for the court.

The legal doctrine of eminent domain allows government to take private property and convert it into public use, especially for public transit projects.

Texas Central will be a privately-financed transit project. Communities in the U.S. have used eminent domain at the behest of private developers to take land for development projects.

Over the past decade, Texas state lawmakers, along with other state legislatures have attempted to limit the power and scope of eminent domain with varying degrees of success.

If the train project moves forward, the now vacant Northwest Mall near Houston’s booming Heights neighborhood will become Texas Central’s main station. 

[Dallas Business Journal] – Karn Dhingra