High-Speed Rail Plan Scores Eminent Domain Power

, which began work in 2014 on its proposedTexas Supreme Courtpower the state grants to railroads under the Texas Transportation Code. That means Texas Central, which back in 2020 received environmental and safety clearance for its project from the, can force reluctant landowners – of whom there are a few in rural East Texas – to sell their property for the project, which the railroad says will carry its first paying passengers in 2026.

Depending on what kind of civics geek you are, you may know that historically, this is how America's railroads, and later its pipelines, got built. However, there's now only one privately owned intercity passenger railroad in the U.S. – South Florida's– which opened in 2018 on existing tracks.

The extreme novelty of Texas Central seemed like it would work in favor of those big land and ag interests along the route who've tried to derail the project at the Texas Legislature and stall it out in the courts. Hilariously, Texas Central identifies itself when necessary as an"," a phrase in state statute referring to pre-World War II public transit, such as between Dallas and Denton or Houston and Galveston.

This is despite the fact that, as the plaintiffs argued when they originally won this case in 2018, Texas Central has no tracks, trains, or stations, and is not guaranteed to ever have them: In their brief to SCOTX, the plaintiffs argue that the law should"protect Texas landowners from ill-equipped entities ... who seek to seize land for speculative projects only to inevitably abandon it ...

Source: Law Daily Report (lawdailyreport.net)

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