A high-speed railway will be built between Los Angeles (LA) and Las Vegas, the representative cities of the western United States. It is expected to be the fastest railway in the United States with over 300 kilometers per hour.
According to railroad company Brightline West, construction on the 351-kilometer-long high-speed railway from Rancho Cucamonga, a city in San Bernardino County next to Los Angeles, California, to the south of the Las Vegas Strip, Nevada officially began that day.
The company explained that the high-speed train running on the railroad runs at a maximum speed of 200 miles per hour and runs the entire section in about two hours.
There are no high-speed trains in the United States that exceed 300 kilometers per hour yet.
Florida-based Brightline has built the Miami-Olando line to run trains up to 125 mph.
“We’re in Nevada today to start building America’s true first high-speed rail line,” the U.S. Department of Transportation told X. “Millions of car trips will disappear every year.”
“People have been dreaming of high-speed rail in the U.S. for decades,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement, adding that the project would bring “new connections leading to thousands of jobs and better economic opportunities, reduced traffic congestion on roads, and mitigation of air pollution.”
Rancho Cucamonga Station, the California terminus of the high-speed rail, is also connected to a local rail station to downtown L.A.
Almost all sections of the railway are built along the existing highway I-15, which connects the two areas.
It usually takes more than four and a half hours to drive from the outskirts of L.A. to the Las Vegas Strip.
When the high-speed train is completed, the travel time between the two regions will be halved.
In addition, there is only one highway connecting LA and Las Vegas, so it is expected that traffic congestion, which has been severely caused on weekends, will be eased.
The company’s goal is to open this high-speed train in time for the upcoming Summer Olympics in Los Angeles in July 2028.
The company predicts that the high-speed train will have 30,000 one-way passengers per day and 11 million per year.
The fare has not been set yet, but it is expected to be much lower than the flight.
According to the Associated Press, the entire construction cost of the high-speed train is worth $12 billion, with the Joe Biden administration providing about $3 billion in grants and $2.5 billion in approval for the sale of duty-free bonds.
President Biden visited Las Vegas in December last year and announced plans to spend $8.2 billion to build 10 rail lines in the western United States ahead of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.
High-speed rail in countries with large land will help people move conveniently. We expect to be able to move quickly and in a short time.
SALLY LEE
US ASIA JOURNAL
