Rep. Joaquin Castro secures $1 million for San Antonio, Texas rail connections

As renewed interest in connecting San Antonio and Austin continues to grow, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro said Tuesday that his office secured $1 million in federal funding to expand rail service in the region.

The funding comes from federal Corridor Identification and Development awards to the Texas Department of Transportation, which is part of a larger $2.5 million grant to build new rail lines and expand existing ones in Texas.

“As the federal government allocates Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act funding to states and local communities, I’ve been working across the aisle to bring that money home to Texas,” Castro said in a statement. “The funding announced today will create good-paying jobs, grow our economy and help more San Antonians get where they need to go.”

Specifically, the $1 million will help explore and plan a rail service from San Antonio to Houston, and from Houston to the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex.

The funding secured by Castro’s office comes mere days after Bexar County Judge Peter Sakai and Travis County Judge Andy Brown expressed interest in better connecting the San Antonio-Austin mega-region.

“Andy and I are working together so that we can get Travis County and Bexar County to get all the fans to watch the San Antonio Spurs without going through IH-35,” Sakai said in a video statement posted on social media platform X.

Renewed attention on connecting the Alamo City and the state’s capital city via rail also comes after grassroots organizations, including RESTART Lone Star Rail District and San Antonians for Rail Transit began lobbying local politicians to re-examine the idea this summer.

The first iteration of the Lone Star Rail District fizzled out in 2016 after Union Pacific, which owns the freight tracks between San Antonio and Austin, pulled out of the deal. Despite $25 million being spent on the project between 2003 and 2016, not a single line went into service.

As Express-News City Editor and former Current Editor-in-Chief Greg Jefferson put it at the time, the only thing the Lone Star Rail District was good at was “to keep a couple people employed and consultants flush with billable hours.”

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This article appears in Dec 13-26, 2023.