High-speed rail line linking Las Vegas and Los Angeles area gets $3B Biden administration pledge
A high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area is getting a Biden administration pledge of $3 billion to help start laying track
LAS VEGAS — A planned high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area got a Biden administration pledge on Tuesday of $3 billion to help start laying track, Nevada elected officials said.
The $12 billion project led by Brightline West has been talked about for decades, and U.S. Sen. Jacky Rosen told reporters that it now has all required right-of-way and environmental approvals, along with labor agreements, for work to start on some 218 miles (351 kilometers) along the Interstate 15 corridor.
No date was announced for work to start. But Rosen said electric-powered trains could be carrying passengers by the time Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympics in 2028.
“We’re ready to get to work,” Wes Edens, founder and chairman of Florida-based Brightline, said in a statement ahead of a Friday event in Las Vegas that may coincide with a visit by President Joe Biden.
Rosen and U.S. Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats, led a bipartisan group including all of Nevada’s elected federal lawmakers and four House members from California that in April urged Biden to commit up to $3.75 billion in federal infrastructure funds toward what they call a public-private partnership.
Planners say trains carrying passengers at nearly 200 mph (322 kph) could cut in half a four-hour freeway trip from a station in Las Vegas through Victorville, California, to a suburban Los Angeles light rail line in the San Bernardino County city of Rancho Cucamonga.
They say the service could help alleviate weekend or end-of-holiday travel traffic jams that often stretch for 15 miles (24
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