In the last few years, Texas Central (a private company) has been pushing to connect Dallas and Houston via high-speed rail without receiving any state funds. The project is controversial, to say the least, and some argue that high-speed rail is outdated technology in light of Elon Musk's Hyperloop.
Given the latest updates on the likely route for the Texas high-speed rail project, the most obvious missed opportunity jumps out sorely at anyone familiar with the geography of Houston: the bullet train is not coming to downtown. I would love to know the details for the "official" reasons underlying such a decision, lest it should seem no more than lack of creativity, competence, and willingness.
[Another big and obvious missed opportunity of the likely route is that it bypasses the International Airport at Houston, which is north of the city, on the way to Dallas... but I won't be discussing that on this post].
I speculate that going inside the 610 loop, all the way to downtown Houston, was too controversial among home and business owners since the train would have to cut through the relatively affluent neighborhoods of Memorial Park/Washington Avenue and Rice Military. I agree that it's quite disappointing to see trains and light rail running at ground level inside cities, interfering with car, bike, and pedestrian traffic -but this is still often better than not having trains nor light rail. On the other hand, burying train tracks is a MUCH more expensive alternative that might be tricky to implement in Houston due to the city's propensity to flooding.
That said, why can't the tracks be raised? Some might argue that they'd look too ugly, which I find to be an overly negative and neurotic opinion. There's nothing ugly about the SkyTrain in Vancouver (the same goes for Bangkok's rail, and rail systems in many other cities). Rather, it's an efficient system congruent with a modern, cosmopolitan city that CONSISTENTLY ranks among the most beautiful and livable in the world, greatly due to its renown urban planning. I lived in Vancouver for a year and returned to visit for months, and I also lived in Houston for 10 years and go back often to visit family and friends. Vancouver's SkyTrain is FAR more convenient and efficient than Houston's current MetroRail lines, which run at street level.
Downtown Houston is one of the densest and most active spots in the metropolitan area and its central location provides, on the aggregate, quicker access to all other important activity hubs than any site outside the 610 loop. Texas Central's high-speed train SHOULD, therefore, go to downtown Houston and, in light of the rationale above, it should do so on raised tracks over existing train lines inside the 610 loop. The obvious route would be along Allen St., all the way to the Amtrak station right onside of downtown Houston's western edge.
Any complaints from residents and businesses about the high-speed train going through their neighborhoods would seem right out ABSURD, since far uglier (older and noisier) trains are ALREADY going along that route. For sure, building a two-level train track system involving at least two different companies might come with a myriad of challenges. While I wasn't able to quickly find any prototype for this concept on the Web, I don't see any obvious impediments that would render such a solution impossible, and bringing high-speed rail to the heart of Houston will be worth the effort. Houston might even attract worldwide recognition if its city officials, planners, and local engineering talent manage to pull off such a feat.
Anyway, if conventional raised tracks are too offensive to the aesthetic sensitivities of the Houston innerloopers, there's a good (and extremely cool!) compromise: simply make the tracks invisible. I bid Houstonians, Texas Central, City and State authorities, and anyone else who is relevant to the project, to please give some more thought to the matter :-)
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