By Cindy Casares • November 13, 2015 • 3:33pm

Once every decade or so, Texas officials make promises that a high-speed rail line from San Antonio to Monterrey, Mexico – the country's financial center, which is located only two hours from the border – is in the works. That time has come around again, and, this week, Texas and Mexican officials met with U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx in Washington, D.C., to present a plan to connect the San Antonio-Laredo corridor with Monterrey, located in Mexico’s northern state of Nuevo Leon.

The proposed high-speed line would be a two-hour commute between San Antonio and Monterrey, with Laredo being the only stopping point in between. Currently, it takes about five hours to drive from Monterrey to San Antonio, not counting the delay while waiting in line to cross the border, which can be considerable, sources say.

U.S. Representative Henry Cuellar of Laredo told My San Antonio in a press conference afterward that he is optimistic this time that the train line will be created. The governor’s office in Nuevo Leon says it has all the necessary permits in place. One thing not yet sorted out: the dinero. Oh, and a little matter of safety in a region rife with organized crime.

I question the security of such an enterprise in a time when driving through northern Mexico would be unthinkable for any U.S. citizen who knows even a little bit about the current political climate in the country. Since July 2010, U.S. government employees have been prohibited from driving on non-official travel from the U.S.-Mexico border to or from the interior of Mexico or Central America. In other words, visit Mexico, but fly there and stay out of certain regions. While violence from organized crime is down in Monterrey (a beautiful city, by the way), the U.S. government prohibits its employees from visiting casinos, gambling institutions and other adult entertainment establishments located within the state of Nuevo Leon because of known organized crime activity.

As for the safety of high-speed trains, it was only a few months ago that passengers on a high-speed train in France were attacked by a gun-wielding terrorist and, by sheer luck, saved by two servicemen and a brave civilian who happened to be on board and figured out what the guy was up to before he really got going. Now France is beefing up security on the entire line.  

Of course, should a high-speed train line come to pass, it will take at least a decade, and the situation in northern Mexico could be completely different by then. Plus, an endeavor of this sort would create more commerce for both countries, with rich Mexican tourists jaunting to San Antonio for a shopping trip at North Star Mall and Americans hopping down to Monterrey for a weekend in the beautiful Sierra Madre mountain range or for some fine dining and dancing the night away. All of which would provide economic opportunities for Mexicans outside of organized crime, though none as lucrative I’m afraid.

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Rep. Cuellar has advocated for this rail line since 2008, and he was able to get it included in a Texas Department of Transportation study that began in 2012 on high-speed rail between Texas and Oklahoma City. Texas Transportation Commissioner Jeff Austin expects the results of that study by the end of this year, he said at the press conference.

Former San Antonio mayor Nelson Wolff is a lot more skeptical. He tried this idea the first time back in 1992. "I don't think you're going to find any money at the local level. I don't think you're going to find any money at the state right now . . . We can't even get the Austin-San Antonio corridor off the ground," Wolff, now a county judge, told the San Antonio Express News this week.

Either way, it’s an exciting idea and one that will inevitably, eventually come to pass one way or another.