$6B OK'd for high-speed electric rail
The Biden administration on Tuesday said it will give more than $6 billion to a pair of highspeed electric rail routes in the U.S. West, injecting new life into long-stalled projects hailed by supporters as the future of public transportation but bemoaned by critics for their high price tags and lengthy construction times.
U.S. senators from California and Nevada said the federal government will give $3 billion for a planned privately-owned route between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area plus another $3.1 billion for an initial segment of California's publicly-funded effort to eventually connect Los Angeles and San Francisco.
The money is a fraction of the total cost to build the routes. But it signals the Biden administration's commitment to high-speed rail, a mode of transportation
commonplace in Europe and Asia but bypassed in the U.S. and its car-obsessed culture.
“The federal government is back on building high speed rail in America,” said Brian Kelly, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority that is overseeing the public project. “This award is just a great leap forward.”
In 2008, California voters gave their blessing for a
500-mile project that promised to carry passengers between Los Angeles and San Francisco in under three hours on a fully-electric train traveling at speeds of up to 220 mph. At the time, the project was projected to cost about $30 billion and be up and running by 2020. If running today, it would be the nation's fastest train service by far.
But more than a decade later, the price has ballooned to more than $100 billion, of which only about $25 billion in funding has been identified by state officials. Today, officials are focusing on a 171-mile stretch that would connect the cities of Merced, Fresno and Bakersfield that would not open until 2033 at the latest. Those three cities are in California's Central Valley, which has some of the worst air quality in the country. The $3.1 billion would go exclusively toward work on that segment.
Kelly, CEO of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, said the new federal money will help close a funding gap of about $10 billion for the Central Valley route. He said the authority will look for more money in the future from both the federal and state governments. California Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom called the funding “a vote of confidence” and said it comes “at a critical turning point” for the project.