From Sin City to the City of Angels, building starts on high-speed rail line
From Sin City to the City of Angels, building starts on high-speed rail line
From Sin City to the City of Angels, building starts on high-speed rail line
Work is set to begin Monday on a $12 billion high-speed passenger rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area, with officials projecting millions of ticket-buyers will be boarding trains by 2028.
Brightline West, whose sister company already operates a fast train between Miami and Orlando in Florida, aims to lay 218 miles (351 kilometers) of new track between a terminal to be built just south of the Las Vegas Strip and another new facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Almost the full distance is to be built in the median of Interstate 15, with a station stop in San Bernardino County’s Victorville area.
In a statement, Brightline Holdings founder and Chairperson Wes Edens called the moment “the foundation for a new industry.”
Brightline aims to link other U.S. cities that are too near to each other for flying between them to make sense and too far for people to drive the distance, Edens said.
I'm glad one of these is finally getting off the ground. So far we haven't seen anything high speed in the US, just "fast".
I'm afraid the money in our politics makes it impossible to get projects like these off the ground. There's too much effort to line their own pockets by politicians, and not enough effort to serve their constituents.
This specific line was first proposed in the Clinton or maybe even Bush Sr administration. It changed concept so many times I really never though a single rail would ever get put down.
At one point there was even talk of connecting it to the monorail that runs down 30% of the strip. I think that's when I lost hope.
Do you remember the highspeed rail from LA to SF we paid billions and billions towards? I remember voting against it saying, "if this is up and running in less than a decade I'd be shocked." 20 years later it isn't up and running.
Well Lyle Lanley was in charge of the project at the time they were going to connect it to the Monorail.
Which is why Brightline takes private money to get it done.
That and they’re using a right of way in the median of the highway, which is much cheaper than trying to get other land rights. Some law on the books about land adjacent to highways being available for rail.