Work on a $12 billion high-speed passenger rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area is ready to start Monday. Officials expect tens of millions of ticket buyers to board trains by 2028.
Brightline West, its sister company already operates an express train between Miami and Orlando, Florida, goals to put 218 miles (351 kilometers) of recent track between a terminal to be built south of the Las Vegas Strip and one other recent facility in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Almost the whole route will probably be in-built the median of Interstate 15, with a stop within the Victorville area of San Bernardino County.
In an announcement, Brightline Holdings founder and chairman Wes Edens called this moment “the foundation of a new industry.”
Brightline goals to attach other U.S. cities which can be too close together for flying between them to make sense and too distant for people to travel the gap by automotive, Edens said.
CEO Mike Reininger said the goal is to have the trains operational in time for the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in 2028.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg is scheduled to attend the groundbreaking ceremony on Monday. Brightline received $6.5 billion in support from the Biden administration, including a $3 billion grant from federal infrastructure funds and Authorization to sell one other $2.5 billion in tax-free bonds. The company received federal approval to sell $1 billion in similar bonds in 2020.
The project is touted because the country’s first true high-speed passenger rail line, designed to succeed in speeds of 186 mph (300 km/h), comparable to Japan’s Shinkansen High-speed trains.
The route between Vegas and LA is essentially open terrain and there isn’t any practical alternative to I-15. Brightline’s Southern California terminal will probably be connected to a commuter rail connection to downtown Los Angeles.
The Project outline says electric-powered trains will shorten the four-hour journey through the Mojave Desert to simply over two hours. Forecasts suggest 11 million one-way passengers per 12 months, or around 30,000 per day, with fares well below the price of air travel. The trains could have toilets, Wi-Fi, food and drinks sales and the flexibility to examine in luggage.
Las Vegas is a preferred road trip destination for Southern Californians. Officials hope the rail line will ease congestion on I-15, where motorists are sometimes stuck in slow-moving traffic for miles as they return home from a weekend in Las Vegas.
The Las Vegas area is now home to almost 3 million residents and attracts greater than 40 million visitors every year. Passenger traffic at town’s Harry Reid International Airport reached a record 57.6 million people in 2023. An average of greater than 44,000 cars per day crossed the California-Nevada state line on I-15 in 2023, based on the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Brightline Holdings, based in Florida, is already doing this Line from Miami to Orlando The trains reach speeds of as much as 200 km/h. Flight operations began in 2018 and expanded to Orlando International Airport last September. There are 16 round-trip flights per day, with a one-way trip costing about $80 for the 235-mile (378-kilometer) route.
Other express trains within the United States include Amtrak’s Acela, which might reach a top speed of 150 mph (241 km/h) while sharing tracks with freight and commuter traffic between Boston and Washington, DC
Ideas which have been floated in recent times include connecting other U.S. cities with high-speed passenger rail Dallas to Houston; From Atlanta to Charlotte, North Carolina; And Chicago to St. Louis. Most experienced delays.
In California, voters approved a proposed 500-mile (805-kilometer) rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco in 2008, however the plan was stalled rising costs and routing disputes. A 2022 California High-Speed Rail Authority marketing strategy called for this The costs had greater than tripled to $105 billion.
