This week, construction began on a high-speed rail line that will connect the gambling mecca of Las Vegas with the Los Angeles metropolitan area.
This will be the first real bullet train in the United States, announced the company “Brightline West” (Brightline West), which implemented the project, estimated at 12 billion dollars.
A bullet train for the Olympics in Los Angeles
The electric high-speed train is expected to carry its first passengers in 2028, when Los Angeles will host the Summer Olympics.
“For decades, people in America have dreamed of real high-speed rail. Now it’s really happening,” said US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
This happened during the ceremony for the groundbreaking of the construction of a rail terminal in Las Vegas for the Arrow trains. The facility will be located south of the famous Las Vegas Strip.
“Brightline West” plans to build a railway line with a length of 351 kilometers. It will run almost entirely along Interstate I-15 and connect Las Vegas (Nevada) with Rancho Cucamonga in California. This city is located about 65 kilometers from central Los Angeles and is connected to the metropolis by an express train of the “Intercity” type.
It is planned to build a station on the high-speed rail line and in the area of the city of Victorville. It is located in San Bernardino County, California.
At over 300 km/h across the desert
Representatives of “Brightline West” announced that their goal is for the new high-speed train to travel at over 300 km/h. This speed is comparable to that of the Japanese Shinkansen bullet train.
The company says the high-speed trains will shorten the four-hour trip across the Mojave Desert. They will cover the distance between the terminal in Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga outside Los Angeles in approximately 2 hours.
The same distance can be traveled by car on the highway in just over 3 hours, but if there are no traffic jams. And they are very typical at the end of weekends, when many people return home from the mecca of gambling after having fun in Sin City, notes CBS.
Annually, about 16 million people travel from Las Vegas to Southern California on the I-15 highway through the Mojave Desert, according to The Hill.
Brightline West estimates that the high-speed rail could reduce the number of car and bus journeys by 3 million a year. This will have a positive environmental effect for the region, as the harmful emissions released by the movement of motor vehicles will be reduced, and the new high-speed trains will be powered by electricity. It is predicted that the number of people traveling with them, and that only in one direction, will reach about 11 million people a year.
“I believe that in time we will look back on current events and say, ‘That’s when the foundations of the high-speed rail business were laid,'” said Brightline West founder Wes Edens, quoted from the Associated Press.
The billionaire notes that the price of tickets for the new high-speed trains will be comparable to that of flights.
A project worth billions
Brightline West’s goal is to connect with high-speed trains American cities that are too close together to travel between them by plane, but not so close that transportation by car or bus is convenient.
The company enjoys the support of the administration of US President Joe Biden for the implementation of the project for the high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area, estimated at 12 billion dollars, according to the AP.
Brightline West received a $3 billion grant from the US Federal Infrastructure Development Fund.
In addition, the company was recently granted permission to raise $2.5 billion in project financing through the issuance of tax-exempt bonds.
In 2020, US federal authorities allowed Brightline West to issue and sell $1 billion worth of such bonds.
According to BTA
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