High-speed rail line connecting Las Vegas and Los Angeles area gets $3B Biden administration pledge

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LAS VEGAS (AP) — The Biden administration pledged $3 billion Tuesday to help lay track for a planned high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and the Los Angeles area. nevada Elected officials said.

The $12 billion project led by Brightline West has been discussed for decades, and U.S. Senator Jackie Rosen told reporters that it now has all the necessary rights-of-way and environmental agreements in place, along with labor agreements to begin work on approximately 218 Approval has been received. miles (351 kilometers) along the Interstate 15 corridor.

No date for starting work was announced. But Rosen said electric trains could carry passengers by the time Los Angeles hosts the Summer Olympics in 2028.

“We’re ready to go to work,” Wes Edens, founder and president of Florida-based brightline, It said in a statement ahead of a Friday event in Las Vegas, which could coincide with a visit by President Joe Biden.

Rosen and U.S. Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, both Democrats, led a bipartisan group including all of Nevada’s elected federal lawmakers and four House members. California He Urges Biden to commit in April Up to $3.75 billion in federal infrastructure funds, what they call a public-private partnership.

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Planners say trains carrying passengers at speeds of about 200 mph (322 kph) could cut a four-hour freeway trip in half. station in las vegas via Victorville, California to the suburban Los Angeles Light Rail line in the San Bernardino County city of Rancho Cucamonga.

He says this service can help ease travel at the end of weekends or holidays traffic jam which often extends for 15 miles (24 kilometers) on I-15 near the Nevada–California line.

“Connecting Las Vegas and Southern California with high-speed rail will create thousands of good-paying union jobs, boost our Southern Nevada tourism economy and ultimately help us cut down on I-15 traffic,” Cortez Masto said Tuesday. Will get.” statement.

U.S. Representative Dina Titus, a Democrat who represents the Las Vegas Strip, said demand for a high-speed rail line to transport tourists from the Mojave Desert to Las Vegas dates back to at least 2001. Before being sidelined during the COVID-19 pandemic, the proposal had a beginning, end, and various names.

Florida-based Brightline Holdings LLC, which built the only privately owned and operated intercity passenger railroad in the U.S., is expected to model the line on service that began in 2014 on Florida’s east coast. that path now connects miami and orlando With trains reaching speeds of up to 125 mph (200 kph).

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