12/10/2023 9:31 pm (current 12/10/2023 9:40 pm)
US President Biden announced the project ©APA/AFP
The first high-speed rail line in the US is scheduled to connect the megacity of Los Angeles (California) and the gambling metropolis of Las Vegas (Nevada) starting in 2028. “We are building the first high-speed rail route in the history of our country. And it starts here,” US President Joe Biden said on Friday during a visit to Las Vegas. The US should have the “fastest, safest and greenest rail transportation in the world.”
Brightline West express trains are expected to cover the 220 miles between Las Vegas and the greater Los Angeles, California, area in two hours and ten minutes – about twice as fast as cars. The line will be operated by private rail company Brightline, which already offers a new rail link between Miami and Orlando, Florida, on the east coast of the USA.
Rail fan Biden's government wants to donate up to three billion dollars (2.8 billion euros) to the Brightline West project. The route is scheduled to be completed in 2028, in time for the Los Angeles Summer Olympics in the same year.
Eleven million passengers are expected each year. Biden said Friday that express trains would remove three million vehicles from the often congested highway between Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
An express train route is also planned between Los Angeles and San Francisco. However, the project has been repeatedly delayed and costs have exploded – and now it will also be advanced with three billion dollars in federal money.
In total, Biden on Friday presented funds totaling $8.2 billion for ten important railroad projects in the country. The money comes from an infrastructure package approved by Congress in 2021, which provides a total of US$66 billion for rail transport.
Passenger trains in the USA currently run slowly and quite irregularly; For decades, priority was given to cars and planes. In the fight against climate change, the US government wants to change this and double the number of passengers by 2040.
Biden himself was an avid rail traveler during his 36 years as a US senator, traveling by train between Washington and his home in Delaware. That's why the 81-year-old Democrat has the nickname “Amtrak Joe” — based on the name of the Amtrak railroad company.