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Brightline West, a high-speed rail project to connect Las Vegas with Southern California, is slated to lay the foundation later this year. Image courtesy Brightline.
Brightline West, a subsidiary of Brightline, the country’s only private passenger railroad, is planning a 170-mile high-speed rail link to connect Las Vegas to the Apple Valley community in San Bernardino County. With a top speed of 200 mph, trains on Brightline West are expected to travel in half the time it takes to travel. The trains run every 45 minutes with a capacity between 600 and 1,200 passengers.
While Brightline West originally expected to start construction in late 2020, the project has faced significant setbacks due to the pandemic. One of them is a lack of interest in private equity bonds that the US Department of Transportation and the states of Nevada and California have allocated to the project to fund construction. A letter from Brightline to the Nevada High-Speed Rail Authority received from USA Today attributes election uncertainty, lack of approval of a COVID-19 vaccine, and lack of liquidity in the market for the setback. Subsequently, Fortress Investment Group, Brightline’s parent company, halted the $ 8 billion project last year when funding could not be completed.
According to an announcement by Sarah Watterson, president of Brightline West, the company is currently preparing a revised financial plan that could result in the project being grounded in the second quarter of 2021 due to improved market conditions. A final date has not yet been set.
That news comes after President Joe Biden’s proposed US $ 2 trillion employment plan that would provide Amtrak with $ 80 billion to cover its repairs, modernize existing tracks, and create new connections between cities. Amtrak then announced plans for an expanded national rail system that includes two new passenger lines connecting Los Angeles with Phoenix and Las Vegas.
