Austin Mayor Kirk Watson in Washington, D.C. Wednesday advocating for Texas rail service

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AUSTIN (KXAN) — Austin Mayor Kirk Watson is in Washington, D.C. Wednesday advocating for significant federal dollars to be invested into Texas’ transportation infrastructure.

Watson wants projects coming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (otherwise called the Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal) to come to Texas. Specifically, the tens of billions of dollars in funding set aside for new high-speed Amtrak rail service.

“Amtrak was given a great deal of money, $66 billion over the next few years, which is frankly, more money than Amtrak has received since it was created back in 1972,” Watson said. More than $20 billion of that will go toward fixing and upgrading current infrastructure, he added.

Mayor Watson spoke about Texas’ need for new commuter rail service during the “Getting on the Right Track: Navigating the Future of Intercity Passenger Rail in America” hearing Wednesday afternoon. That hearing is happening in the House Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials.

Watson told KXAN just before the hearing that he believes Texas is a primary candidate for new high-speed rail service because of its significant population growth and the proximity of major cities: Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and Houston.

“And the Texas triangle of Dallas-Fort Worth to Houston to San Antonio, and backup through Austin to DFW has about 70% of the population of the state of Texas, 74% of the economy,” Watson told KXAN. He added: “I want us to get some of that money.”

Watson says this year he has several times discussed the idea with the CEO of Amtrak, Stephen Gardner. He added that TxDOT has also applied for a grant under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act to do some planning about what an extensive rail service in Texas may look like.

“All of these things are happening right now. And that’s one of the reasons that I jumped on an airplane and came up here so that I could I could advocate for what I think we need to get,” Watson said.

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