Bullet train would speed change in the IE

Up to 11M passengers are forecast annually at future Rancho Cucamonga Station

After reading about plans for a bullet train between Sin City and the 909, I quickly saw the benefits. “Finally,” I thought, “people in Las Vegas can travel to Rancho Cucamonga for a weekend getaway. And get a good night’s sleep.”

OK, maybe that’s not the most obvious reward. All the chatter is about people from Southern California making round trips to Las Vegas. In reality, the pattern should be more complicated.

“In California, we look at it that it’s easier for us to get to Vegas. But California is the No. 1 destination for people from Nevada,” observed Matt Burris, Rancho Cucamonga’s deputy city manager.

People from Vegas could take the train here, then board Metrolink to get to L.A. or take an Uber to Disneyland, Burris told me. Or people could board in Apple Valley, and from Rancho could ride the ONT Connect shuttle 4 miles to Ontario International Airport for a flight.

How many might do this? No one knows yet. And we won’t really know until service starts.

That’s if it does, of course. But after 20 years of gab, plans for a fast train through the desert — on a route paralleling the 15 Freeway — are, shall we say, accelerating.

As you’ve no doubt heard, Brightline West, a private company, is proposing to build the all-electric rail line, promising to make the 218-mile journey in just over two hours at speeds up to 186 mph. Service could begin in 2027.

Two bursts of good news came recently, courtesy of the trainlovin’ Biden administration. First,

Brightline was granted $3 billion from infrastructure funds Dec. 5. Then on Jan. 23, the U.S. Department of Transportation granted an additonal $2.5 billion in private activity bonds.

That’s almost half of the $12 billion cost, the rest of which would be raised by investors.

This all sounds good to me. My only regret is that there’s no footage of Joe Biden saying “Rancho Cucamonga.”

To get a firmer grasp on what

might be a monumental project for Rancho Cucamonga and the Inland Empire, I met at City Hall with Burris and his boss, John Gillison, the city manager, to hear how Brightline West looks from their perspective.

Because Brightline West is an interstate transportation project, the state and federal governments are the entities approving the route and all necessary permits, Gillison explained. Rancho Cucamonga has

RENDERINGS COURTESY OF THE CITY OF RANCHO CUCAMONGA This rendering shows the view of the future Cucamonga Station from the southwest.

A rendering of the future Brightline West station in Rancho Cucamonga shows the bullet train on elevated tracks, a terminal and a portion of the parking structure at right and, in the background, a Metrolink platform at surface level.