After reporting here and elsewhere that Union Pacific has pulled out of talks with Lone Star Rail(LSR) over the building of a new freight line between Taylor and San Antonio and surrendering the exisiting tracks for use by LSR, Georgetown has finally taken notice. Evidently LSR has not communicated to the city the impact of the breakdown in talks with Union Pacific and now the city is trying to find out the impact.
City Councilman, John Hesser thinks its time for Georgetown to withdraw and stop pouring money into a losing proposition. LSR has not provided Georgetown with a budget estimate of the total cost or Georgetown's share of the cost. The last publicly known estimate was over $2 Billion and that was over 2 years ago. The estimate has likely escalated significantly since then.
Some in the city management believe continued participation in LSR is worth it because in 2017 the city will receive an environmental impact report that covers the area that the proposed rail-line would impact in the city limits. It is highly unlikely that this system wide report will be of any value to Georgetown. Any development in southern Georgetown that requires an environmental report will require a new assessment based on the particular property and the proposed development.
The funds already spent on the current effort should be considered as "sunk funds", not relevant to decisions to spend money in the future, and Councilman Hesser's effort to exit LSR should be supported.
Finally! We were adamant in the past that this rail proposal was a non starter. We actually got the council to exit the program, but a few in the council got the rest to vote it back in. We must stop sending money to a dead item.
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