For nearly four decades, Texans have asked for a bullet train to connect the state's largest cities.

Now President Joe Biden is reportedly seeking to revive a project that would construct a high-speed train from Houston to Dallas in Texas.

According to a Reuters report on Tuesday, citing unnamed administration sources, the White House is looking to make an announcement on the project following talks between Biden and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in Washington, D.C., this week.

The Japanese government and the White House declined to comment on the report, though the project has seen renewed support from Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who told KXAS in Fort Worth on Sunday: "We believe in this."

The secretary cited how the population is laid out in Texas. The cities in the "Texas Triangle" - Houston, San Antonio, through Austin to Dallas - are a long drive or short flight away. That, mixed with a lot of potential customers, makes it a prime case for high-speed rail.

What is the high-speed railway project?

Bullet trains can operate up to a speed of 200 mph. While one would take an estimated 90 minutes to travel on the bullet train between Dallas and Houston, the same journey by road would take about three and a half hours.

Nearly 100,000 residents travel the 240-mile journey between the two cities each week and some even more frequently, according to a 2012 study conducted by NYU's Rudin Center for Transportation.

This would promote the economies of both and stimulate the jobs market. Having a high-speed link would also alleviate the need for through-trains on slower lines, meaning more stopping trains could be scheduled as required.

With stations planned at The Cedars neighborhood near Downtown Dallas and the Northwest Mall site in Houston, the train would depart every 30 minutes during peak periods each day and hourly during off-peak periods, according to Texas Central, a Dallas-based company that devised the plan. The train would also make one stop along the route in Grimes County.

In December 2023, the Dallas to Houston Amtrak submitted the project to the Federal Railroad Administration's Corridor ID program and it received $500,000. The money will go to prepare the outline of the project, a cost estimate, and a timeline known as a Service Development Plan (SDP).

How much will the Texas bullet train cost?

However, the project still faces potential obstacles, including lawmakers in Congress and Texas. A 2017 report by the Department of Transportation put the cost of the project at $15 billion to $18 billion, but some estimates have put it as high as $30 billion.