Houston-Dallas High-Speed Rail + Tearing Down I-345 = A Big Win

The primary purpose of the study was to examine the suitability of existing highway corridors for the geometries and right-of-way availability to bring HSR along side (or even in some cases over the top of) the highway corridor. This makes a lot of sense. For one, TxDOT wants to avoid the mess that the Trans-Texas Corridor caused in terms of right-of-way acquisition (as well as its myriad of other issues). Also, as I've said a million times rail creates disconnections except at its station areas or termini. It creates edges and border vacuums just like a highway, so might as well pair the edge-makers up together (like highways and floodplains -- see: downtown Denver).

There are also recommended criteria for selecting station areas. One stipulation was approximately 20 acres for a downtown station. I have just the place:

Since there's no need for [Interstate] 345 anymore. Wink wink. Nudge nudge. Amirite?

Actually this location does solve a number of problems (assuming 345 goes bye bye). It utilizes the examined 45 right-of-way to steer the trains into downtown, there is redevelopable area nearby, it avoids the border vacuum problem by not bringing the rail deeper into downtown, in all likelihood the D2 link will be somewhere near this vicinity, linking HSR to the broader train network.