Texas is a big, big place, and I don't think people truly comprehend how big it is. Our highways — constantly under construction — stretch on for miles and miles. I've driven from Galveston to Amarillo and watched the landscape and the weather change drastically as I did it. To go from Houston to Dallas alone is a five-hour drive, longer if you've got your wife and kid in the car.
Leftists have been complaining about the travel issues plaguing Texas for some time, noting that not everyone has a vehicle that can go from the Shire to Mordor, or that it's too expensive to do so, and thus we should build high-speed rail across the state from major cities like Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, and Houston. According to them, this would solve so many issues, such as the increasingly clogged highways from interstate immigrants, climate issues, and allow the poor and disadvantaged to get from one place to another.
You'll often see them pointing at other countries that have high-speed rail. One user recently pointed to France, a country that is slightly smaller than Texas, and its high-speed rail system.
France has 2,185 miles of high-speed rail, btw. pic.twitter.com/iTyjO6c8K0
— Hayden (@the_transit_guy) November 24, 2025
I can see into their minds. They picture the concept art of a shining bullet train against a clear blue sky. The interior is clean, and people happily converse with each other as children smile in their mothers' laps. Young people read a book quietly with their headphones on as the Texas landscape wizzes by. It's a fantastic thing to imagine.
But most fantasies are.
I've written on the left's obsession with high-speed rail in America before, and even then, I concluded that the sheer enormity of America and the cost it would incur to both build and upkeep that level of infrastructure isn't something taxpayers can shoulder:
California has spent an average of more than $100 million per route‐mile building 220 mph track on flat land.17 The latest estimates project that the entire 520‐mile route will cost $100 billion, of which $20 billion is for 120 miles of flat land and $80 billion is for 400 miles of hilly or mountainous territory.18 That works out to $200 million a mile for hilly areas.
At these costs, Obama’s original high‐speed rail plan would require well over $1 trillion, while the USHSR’s plan would need well over $3 trillion. Building a system longer than China’s would cost at least $4 trillion.
But let's get down to the real issue. Let's say it did get built, and it featured the most advanced rail system in the known world. It could zip you from San Antonio to Fort Worth in the blink of an eye. No need to put miles on your car and expensive gas in your tank. Just purchase a ticket and let modern engineering do the rest.
Very few people would ride it.
Why? Because Democrats can't help but shoot their own pet project in the head, thanks to the fact that they leave too many people walking the streets who would happily shoot you in the head, and for no good reason. In fact, a lot of the clips that make their way to the internet featuring assaults and murders too often come from places like subways and train cars.
High-profile murders, or attempted murders, have recently happened on public transit. Irina Zarutska was murdered by a man who had been arrested and released multiple times, being stabbed in the neck and bled to death as onlookers did nothing. Even more recently, a Chicago woman named Bethany MaGee was set on fire on a train by a man who had been arrested for violent crimes and released an unforgivable 72 times. Debrina Kawam was killed similarly in a New York subway car when she was immolated by a man who sat and fanned the flames while he watched her burn.
Debrina Kawam was killed after a man, Sebastian Zapeta-Calil, a 33-year-old Guatemalan national, put her ablaze while she was on board a Brooklyn train on December 22. Police walked by as he fanned the flames on her and then sat and watched her. pic.twitter.com/HY7mMljX6t
— Ellen Kearney (@ElizabethMcFinn) November 24, 2025
Even just this week, a New York subway rider was stabbed by another man for simply asking him to talk a bit quieter on his phone.
Public transit is statistically safer, as motor vehicle accidents and crime are higher than on public transportation services, given that crimes of harassment and theft go underreported. Regardless, if it were used far more frequently, as cars are, those numbers would skyrocket, and there aren't enough law enforcement and policing options to protect passengers from crazed people.
Then there's the fact that the left sees these systems as being clean and spotless, but American systems are hardly clean. Often filled with trash, discarded food, or, at times, worse. They picture Japanese rail systems, which are pristine, punctual, and taken care of by both rider and attendant. They can have that because that is Japan's culture, not America's. Amtrak trains often have no air conditioning, smell of sewage in sleeper cars, have torn seats, and long delays. The stops themselves are too often filthy with trash and graffiti.
A high-speed rail system in Texas is just a bad idea, and one that spans across America is even worse. A lot of it is down to the fact that Democrats too often go easy on the people who would make this level of public transportation miserable or dangerous.
