The complete cost is estimated to be $12bn and is expected to be completed before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics
High-speed rail in the American west has received a major new investment with the Biden administration pledging $3bn for a project connecting Las Vegas to southern California and $3.07bn to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles.
Officials have described the ambitious projects as a “gamechanger” for tourism and travel in the region.
The Las Vegas to Los Angeles project aims to finish before the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
The California high-speed rail authority program, which has long been stuck in limbo, expects to start initial service as early as 2030, and aims to ultimately move travelers from San Francisco to the Los Angeles basin at speeds above 200mph (322km/h) in under 3 hours.
… Yes, because there are no existing tracks*. Hence the laughter. Apologies if I was too subtle.
And building in the median of the highway is going to be interesting for how much this angers people over the next few years. But better for responsiveness.
As for high speeds: Yeah, time will tell on that one. Because highway and road noise is already bad enough. And looking at the gold standard for high speed rail (the Shinkansen): When you are in “rural” Japan, you are going insanely fast and it is glorious. When you are in cities or even towns, you slow down considerably. Still faster than local trains, but (not having looked at the numbers) I would assume comparable to the express trains that skip a lot of stops. And that is perfectly reasonable. I spent a few weeks in Japan not too long ago and my hotel was literally next to some above ground tracks. I grew up in a city so it barely bothered me, but the person I was traveling with acknowledged she would not be able to sleep until the trains stopped for the night.
*: Just because I am inevitably going to deal with some pedants. Yes, there actually are a lot more tracks than people would expect. But, generally, there is nowhere near enough redundancy or flexibility for it to matter. Because if you need to clear out the cargo trains to pass some passengers through, it actively costs money. And if your passengers only have a ten minute window, same problem.