July 17, 2016 - Austin American-Statesman
TxDOT officials recently said the Texas Constitution could require that MoKan be used only for roads. The 28-mile former MKT line has been on highway and transit drawing boards for years, to no avail. A long-range transit plan shows parts of it being used for express buses and regional rail.
Ben Wear - Austin American-Statesman
MoKan has never lacked for suitors.
For a decade or so in the 1980s and 1990s, the 28 miles of abandoned rail right of way running from East Austin to Georgetown was going to be an alternative freeway to Interstate 35. You might have heard of it. A road by the name of Texas 130. Eventually, transportation officials began talking about it being a tollway.
But as the turn of the 21st century approached, and development picked up in that formally rural eastern corridor, the cities along the way, backed by their Williamson and Travis county colleagues, pushed for a Texas 130 route farther to the east. Building a big highway where the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas trainsused to run (from 1904 to 1976) would be too disruptive to the people beginning to live nearby, they said, especially in Pflugerville, where the corridor cuts right through town.
Read more: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/transportation/mokant-abandoned-rail-corridor-east-of-austin-cont/nrzLs/
TxDOT officials recently said the Texas Constitution could require that MoKan be used only for roads. The 28-mile former MKT line has been on highway and transit drawing boards for years, to no avail. A long-range transit plan shows parts of it being used for express buses and regional rail.
Ben Wear - Austin American-Statesman
MoKan has never lacked for suitors.
For a decade or so in the 1980s and 1990s, the 28 miles of abandoned rail right of way running from East Austin to Georgetown was going to be an alternative freeway to Interstate 35. You might have heard of it. A road by the name of Texas 130. Eventually, transportation officials began talking about it being a tollway.
But as the turn of the 21st century approached, and development picked up in that formally rural eastern corridor, the cities along the way, backed by their Williamson and Travis county colleagues, pushed for a Texas 130 route farther to the east. Building a big highway where the old Missouri-Kansas-Texas trainsused to run (from 1904 to 1976) would be too disruptive to the people beginning to live nearby, they said, especially in Pflugerville, where the corridor cuts right through town.
Read more: http://www.mystatesman.com/news/news/transportation/mokant-abandoned-rail-corridor-east-of-austin-cont/nrzLs/