The United States is seeing major public and private investment into high(er)-speed rail projects in multiple regions: and not just the northeast! This article from the Washington Post gives a...
The United States is seeing major public and private investment into high(er)-speed rail projects in multiple regions: and not just the northeast! This article from the Washington Post gives a solid overview of some of the most exciting HSR projects in the country.
Amtrak Acela: new fleet and Northeast Corridor improvements. The new trains are expected to enter passenger service in 2024 and will raise the maximum speed of the region from 150 mph to 160 mph. More importantly, this purchase comes with simultaneous investment in bridge and tunnel rehabilitation around New York City and potential future realignment (straightening) of track segments whose curves make high speeds difficult. The Northeast Corridor has historically been one of Amtrak's most (and only) profitable routes, making it an essential component of the American rail network. Obviously, public transportation doesn't need to make money: such a goal is unrealistic and unnecessary most of the time. However, the incredible density and fairly linear geography of the northeast's population centers makes it a critical place for the nation to invest. If high-speed rail is going to succeed anywhere, it might as well be here!
Brightline West: a completely new electrified track proposed for construction between Los Angeles and Las Vegas, to be completed by 2027 (just in time for the LA Olympics!). Trains would reach 186 mph, which is considered truly high-speed in the rest of the developed world. That's faster than the Northeast Corridor! Brightline expects a mix of public and private funding to get this track built. Their timeline is ambitious, but with their soon-to-be-probably-successful opening of Brightline Florida, between Miami and Orlando, I expect venture capitalist dollars will be rolling in. While I have qualms about promoting development in the desert-where-humans-should-not-live city of Las Vegas, I realize that connecting two major population centers like this would be a huge boon to both economies and likely to the state of American rail overall.
California High-Speed Rail: a project to connect California's biggest metro areas, San Francisco and Los Angeles, via trains hitting maximum speeds of 220 mph. This monstrous project has seen significant progress in the last few years, with a major construction package in the Central Valley to be completed by 2030. The CAHSR Authority has also overseen electrification of existing tracks between San Francisco and San Jose, which make up a significant portion of the route and are essential to future high-speed trains. Once the segment from Merced to Bakersfield is fully constructed (2030–2033), additional track must be built to connect San Jose with Merced via Gilroy, and Bakersfield with Los Angeles via Burbank. Fortunately, the state has environmentally cleared almost 100% of the route already, and expects to have the rest cleared within the next two or so years. This onerous review process is the first and most difficult obstacle for a megaproject like this to overcome. Funding beyond the Central Valley segment remains a question of some significance, though I expect that Brightline West's completion in 2027 has the capacity to accelerate public interest in CAHSR, which would theoretically be able to connect to it.
Dallas–Houston High-Speed Rail: in its early stages, a project to connect Texas' two largest metro areas, some of the fastest-growing in the country. Under the proposal by the private Texas Central Railway, which was recently endorsed by Amtrak, trains could run at up to 200 mph for a remarkable travel time of 90 minutes. (Driving currently takes 3.5 hours without traffic.) There isn't an up-to-date timeline and I would be surprised if we saw this before 2030. While I think it's a great and important project, the state of Texas is known for disliking its own constituents and generally has little interest in doing things that are beneficial to humanity or the environment. Thus, even with mostly private and/or federal funding, I expect legal challenges will continue to be this line's biggest hurdle.
Cascadia High-Speed Rail: this proposed line connecting Vancouver, Canada with the American cities of Seattle, Portland, and Eugene would link multiple enormous metro areas with trains operating at a staggering 250 mph, if all goes according to plan. For reference, Amtrak trains in the region currently operate at a max of 79 mph and an average of probably half that, at best. This project is in the very early stages and I would expect to see the numbers change considerably as it progresses. I would also expect a hefty price tag. However, I think that these states would be willing to shoulder that burden for the obvious economic opportunity that it would bring. International coordination with Canada is also necessary: Amtrak has successfully done this with existing routes operating between New York City and Toronto/Montréal, so it's not out of the question by any means. (This also means that Canada and British Columbia could be additional sources of funding!) Microsoft has apparently donated (!) $500k to this project to conduct early studies determining the feasibility of certain routes. According to this article, Washington State also provided some amount of funding for route analysis. A timeline of 2035 sounds optimistic to me—it's a long route, and they haven't even submitted a Tier 1 Environmental Impact Study—but of all the proposals in this list, I think it has the potential to work out the most smoothly. The Pacific Northwest has had its eye on California's system for some time and can certainly learn from its mistakes last decade. Its route across two states plus a Canadian province requires significant planning, but could also reduce political unwillingness for any single entity to pay an excessive amount for the project (like California's 85% of its own rail system, with only 15% federal funding). As an inter-state route, it would probably receive more federal support overall. And significant corporate support to get the ball rolling has clearly been making waves. We'll see!
Because I currently live in the northeast, I'm most personally excited about the upgrades to the Northeast Corridor. I take this line pretty frequently between various cities. The Gateway Program is desperately needed (Chris Christie was foolish to pull out of the Access to the Region's Core a decade ago, or we would have had this already) and the NEC Future plan (which I would link, but the Federal Railroad Administration's website is experiencing technical difficulties) looks promising, though expensive. However, I also absolutely support every high-speed rail project in the US. This country is well-suited for the technology and can absolutely benefit from it.
Interestingly this Washington Post article doesn't mention the Amtrak Connects US: 2035 plan, which seeks to build out new routes and expand existing ones all over the country. While most of these aren't high-speed (hence its omission, I suppose), they are an important complement to the flashy projects described here. Increasing ridership is going to be essential to solidifying passenger rail as a dominant mode between cities in this country.
Man, if you want a good example of how politics can knee-cap and almost derail a project I would suggest a deep dive into the California LA-SF line. It's been talked about since I was 15 (I'm 34...
Man, if you want a good example of how politics can knee-cap and almost derail a project I would suggest a deep dive into the California LA-SF line. It's been talked about since I was 15 (I'm 34 now) and Mike Antonovich - with of all weird additions Jerry Epstein - deserves his own chair as lead derailer. I'm excited the project is happening but it's been quite the ride.
I'd be excited to see a corridor addition with a Santa Cruz to Monterey line. We had one back in the 1900-1960s, and the original rail lines are still in place. In fact Santa Cruz left their section untouched during a recent development of a bike trail that runs adjacent to the defunct rail line. Room to dream I suppose.
Santa Cruz to Monterey HSR, or rail in general, would be phenomenal. I'm going to be in Monterey later this year for an event, but flying into SFO. It's disappointing that there is no passenger...
Santa Cruz to Monterey HSR, or rail in general, would be phenomenal. I'm going to be in Monterey later this year for an event, but flying into SFO. It's disappointing that there is no passenger rail route (as far as I can see) between the airport and where I need to go. On a bus, it will take at least two and a half hours (probably more). Even by taxi, it would still be a good two hours, and pretty expensive.
Unfortunately, the populations of both Santa Cruz (62k) and Monterey (30k) aren't enough to justify prioritizing it in the CAHSR plan, at least not immediately. Like the NYT article alludes to, there was some talk early on about a coastal route between SF and LA, which would probably stop at one or both cities, but the stakeholders at the time seemed to agree that it wouldn't be feasible over an inland route. :/ I don't have a problem with the inland route in general—the article paints it as fundamentally problematic, but the Central Valley is underserved in general and it is reasonable to be served by a statewide system—but I definitely wouldn't have started there!
Anyway, with a stop at nearby San Jose and Gilroy I don't think it's unreasonable to connect Santa Cruz to the network, either as a one-seat spur with less frequency or as a transfer. And if the old right-of-way still exists between Santa Cruz and Monterey... well, that's the biggest problem out of the way. They'd need to upgrade the tracks themselves and provide electrification, but hey, no land acquisition!
I wouldn't worry about Las Vegas too much. Believe it or not, it's actually a model city for water conservation. I'm super excited to see if Brightline can actually deliver and spur public...
I have qualms about promoting development in the desert-where-humans-should-not-live city of Las Vegas
I wouldn't worry about Las Vegas too much. Believe it or not, it's actually a model city for water conservation. I'm super excited to see if Brightline can actually deliver and spur public interest in high-speed rail!
I will believe none of this until they're actually running. The Vegas to LA line has been talked about/worked on/started/stopped/blown up/whatever since the early 00's and I don't think they've...
I will believe none of this until they're actually running. The Vegas to LA line has been talked about/worked on/started/stopped/blown up/whatever since the early 00's and I don't think they've even broken ground on such a project, or settled on it.
The obscene cost of land in california mixed with "well no one wants to take a train to X" is just a kiss of death for a project like this.
I'm still of the opinion that the only way we're going to get any serious high speed rail is if we start building it where it's cheap. A line from Vegas to Reno, if logistically/technically possible, would probably do a ton for both cities. They can then hook up to carson and some of the smaller towns inbetween, and I think you'll see growth all around. Eventually if some other state wants to connect, great, but that's their problem.
The "must build to LA" where land is hyper expensive is a doomed prospect from the get go. Like the original rail, it's time to just build where we can and let towns pop up along the way because they're connected.
And yeah, the wiki on the subject isn't exactly confidence inspiring:
It's just constant renames after 2 decades of failure to even break ground.
Edit -
Digging a bit more, hell it's been talked about in various projects since the 70's/80's, so yeah. Not getting my hopes up at all. I know the north/south Cali line is another "they'll talk about it but never do it" project, most recently derailed by Musk's bullshit hyperloop among other more common suspects.
This line has cleared full environmental review. Brightline is leasing the median of the freeway, an established and inexpensive right-of-way. Construction will begin this year, but only if they...
The Vegas to LA line has been talked about/worked on/started/stopped/blown up/whatever since the early 00's and I don't think they've even broken ground on such a project, or settled on it.
This line has cleared full environmental review. Brightline is leasing the median of the freeway, an established and inexpensive right-of-way. Construction will begin this year, but only if they receive $3.75 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. I believe that they are likely to get most or all of the money they request. If they don't, I think their success in Florida will prompt some private investment. But it would be a major blow not to receive any federal funding, and could potentially kill the project.
The difference between now and decades past is that there was no Bipartisan Infrastructure Law before. This law is giving Amtrak more funding than it has ever received in every year of its entire history—combined. Likewise it allocates tens of billions of dollars in grants for other high-speed rail projects across the country, not just in the Northeast Corridor. It's difficult to convey how momentous Biden's law is: it has the capacity to kickstart a rail transformation in the United States.
I know the north/south Cali line is another "they'll talk about it but never do it" project
California High-Speed Rail is actively under construction. The Central Valley segment has largely been funded already and will likely see full funding. The part we're not sure about is the connections to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I can see that happening with some federal support. (As for the rest of Phase 1, and Phase 2, I'm not as optimistic.)
I'm still of the opinion that the only way we're going to get any serious high speed rail is if we start building it where it's cheap.
[...]
Like the original rail, it's time to just build where we can and let towns pop up along the way because they're connected.
This is the approach that California High-Speed Rail took, which in hindsight was probably a mistake. There were a bunch of things going on at the time, such as federal money that would expire if they didn't use it immediately (and they could really only use it in the Central Valley). The organization had some legal troubles but was largely mired by mismanagement early on.
In general, it is not optimal to begin construction in remote areas. It is important for planners to use something resembling a city pair gravity model whose resultant construction timeline prioritizes the strongest population center connections. San Francisco to San Jose/Gilroy (even to Sacramento), or San Diego/Anaheim to LA/Burbank, are better free-standing sections of HSR than Merced to Bakersfield, and depending on the route could cost approximately as much. In the United States, it is not cost-effective or politically feasible to build a literal rail to nowhere (à la China HSR); they have to target the biggest population centers. The construction of a high-speed rail line like SF–LA requires significant "bookend" improvements in the metro areas of those cities, in addition to completely new right-of-way in the Central Valley, but the key part is that those "bookend" improvements can and will be used by dramatically more people than a middle-of-nowhere section of track. Of course, Merced, Bakersfield, etc. are cities of some note but they really have nothing on LA and SF. Here are the worst-case scenarios for an approximately equivalent amount of funding, starting in two different places:
If funding is pulled from CAHSR after the Merced–Bakersfield segment, there will be no high-speed rail between any large metropolitan areas. (SF tracks will be electrified, but they won't be running at 220 mph.)
If CAHSR Authority had started with construction packages in SF and LA (perhaps just one at a time), and funding were pulled after that segment were complete (before the Central Valley) there would be high-speed rail connecting major portions of the state, including one or both of its biggest cities. Because the line(s) would already integrate with a major metro area, it would not only serve orders of magnitude more people (both for high-speed inter-city travel and local regional rail) but ensure that there is far more political will to extend the network to other major metro areas.
While there is a little more upfront cost to starting in a city, it doesn't need to be high if agencies are proactive about reserving right-of-way a few years ahead of time, as well as making better planning decisions overall. (New York wisely did this in the Hudson Yards, and are reaping immense benefits via the Hudson Tunnel Project.) There is a reason we see more investment in the Northeast Corridor than in the middle of rural Pennsylvania, even though both of those are important for a theoretical New York–Chicago HSR line.
Alon Levy describes some of the sources of high American construction costs. It is their main area of research with the Transit Costs Project. This is a uniquely American issue: it's not like other countries don't see cost overruns, but construction in the US is literally 10x more expensive than in Europe or Asia. Part of that is scale, but most of it is bad planning decisions, like building a network in the middle of nowhere rather than making self-sufficient segments in major population centers, and then lacking the money or political will to finish it.
I admit this is encouraging, but Vegas/Nevada is pretty notorious for just not being able to handle anything outside the hotel industry (having literally done a stellar reenactment of The Simpsons...
I admit this is encouraging, but Vegas/Nevada is pretty notorious for just not being able to handle anything outside the hotel industry (having literally done a stellar reenactment of The Simpsons monorail episode). I hope they get it done because it's a long overdue upgrade for the nations infrastructure, but I have so few hopes for these longer/more expensive projects.
IF they get it off the ground then they get to worry about all the normal problems of keeping it going through multiple admin's until completed (i think these timelines are also insanely optimistic)
The 2027 timeline is the most questionable part about it to me. The environmental review is completely finished, but even if they do break ground this year as they intend to, a four-year timeline...
Exemplary
The 2027 timeline is the most questionable part about it to me. The environmental review is completely finished, but even if they do break ground this year as they intend to, a four-year timeline for a 218-mile track is ambitious. Here are some relatively time-efficient high-speed rail schedules in other countries, for comparison:
France LGV Sud-Est (Saint-Florentin to Montchanin): ~138 mi, 5 years
These are highly cherry-picked examples. Plenty of similar projects took over a decade to complete. China's construction timelines in particular are insane, but you still see remarkably efficient work in Japan, South Korea, and France, to name a few.
Ranges provided because it depends how you count: environmental approval vs. actual track-laying; and some projects do other infrastructure before putting down track, etc. Emphasis on the higher end of the range. I'm not familiar enough with each of these systems to claim that these are apples-to-apples comparisons. However, this list gives a general sense of the scope Brightline is going for. It's kinda nuts... but still reasonable. There are some wild variations in the amount of time it took to complete projects, which may result from difficulties integrating into existing networks or political issues. Brightline faces minimal obstacles on both fronts.
These examples demonstrate that an uncomplicated 200-mile line could realistically be constructed in around four years. From an engineering standpoint, it's completely feasible as long as there is enough money to do it. The route is mostly flat and there are no plans to stop at intermediate cities (which would require expensive stations). As far as I'm aware, it doesn't require any tunnels of note. It'll also be mostly single-tracked, which may or may not involve some complicated siding schedule charts but does keep the cost down slightly. At this point, on-time completion depends 100% on the $3.75 billion grant request from the federal government. If the Biden administration agrees to it, the project will most likely complete on schedule. Once the money is allocated, it doesn't particularly matter who's elected president next term; Brightline will already have been given the grant.
Admittedly, in addition to some private funding, Brightline has extra motivation: the 2028 Olympics. While there are often engineering challenges associated with high-speed rail projects, the route Brightline has selected is relatively straightforward. This signals to me that any potential slowdowns would largely be a result of missing funds: in theory, in the event of a potential delay, a California or United States government interested in making a good impression before the international community could allocate some speed-money to the project to ensure it remains on track. (The LGV Sud Europe Atlantique is an example of how cash inflow from the government can cut a construction timeline in half.) I'm still not going to say I believe they'll be done in 2027, but I think it's plausible that trains will be operational before summer 2028.
Love seeing this investment in high speed rail in this country. I'm super hopeful for the CAHSR as it's the system closest to me. I'll be honest, I'm a bit surprised by how they've been able to...
Love seeing this investment in high speed rail in this country. I'm super hopeful for the CAHSR as it's the system closest to me. I'll be honest, I'm a bit surprised by how they've been able to hit all their milestones so far without too much delay. Hope they can finish things on time!
The Texas system is also super interesting to me. Texas highways are a wild-west and having high-speed rail that would smash the driving time would be cool to see. Hope the state can see the value in a properly built and maintained HSR system and get one built!
The United States is seeing major public and private investment into high(er)-speed rail projects in multiple regions: and not just the northeast! This article from the Washington Post gives a solid overview of some of the most exciting HSR projects in the country.
Because I currently live in the northeast, I'm most personally excited about the upgrades to the Northeast Corridor. I take this line pretty frequently between various cities. The Gateway Program is desperately needed (Chris Christie was foolish to pull out of the Access to the Region's Core a decade ago, or we would have had this already) and the NEC Future plan (which I would link, but the Federal Railroad Administration's website is experiencing technical difficulties) looks promising, though expensive. However, I also absolutely support every high-speed rail project in the US. This country is well-suited for the technology and can absolutely benefit from it.
Interestingly this Washington Post article doesn't mention the Amtrak Connects US: 2035 plan, which seeks to build out new routes and expand existing ones all over the country. While most of these aren't high-speed (hence its omission, I suppose), they are an important complement to the flashy projects described here. Increasing ridership is going to be essential to solidifying passenger rail as a dominant mode between cities in this country.
Man, if you want a good example of how politics can knee-cap and almost derail a project I would suggest a deep dive into the California LA-SF line. It's been talked about since I was 15 (I'm 34 now) and Mike Antonovich - with of all weird additions Jerry Epstein - deserves his own chair as lead derailer. I'm excited the project is happening but it's been quite the ride.
I'd be excited to see a corridor addition with a Santa Cruz to Monterey line. We had one back in the 1900-1960s, and the original rail lines are still in place. In fact Santa Cruz left their section untouched during a recent development of a bike trail that runs adjacent to the defunct rail line. Room to dream I suppose.
Santa Cruz to Monterey HSR, or rail in general, would be phenomenal. I'm going to be in Monterey later this year for an event, but flying into SFO. It's disappointing that there is no passenger rail route (as far as I can see) between the airport and where I need to go. On a bus, it will take at least two and a half hours (probably more). Even by taxi, it would still be a good two hours, and pretty expensive.
Unfortunately, the populations of both Santa Cruz (62k) and Monterey (30k) aren't enough to justify prioritizing it in the CAHSR plan, at least not immediately. Like the NYT article alludes to, there was some talk early on about a coastal route between SF and LA, which would probably stop at one or both cities, but the stakeholders at the time seemed to agree that it wouldn't be feasible over an inland route. :/ I don't have a problem with the inland route in general—the article paints it as fundamentally problematic, but the Central Valley is underserved in general and it is reasonable to be served by a statewide system—but I definitely wouldn't have started there!
Anyway, with a stop at nearby San Jose and Gilroy I don't think it's unreasonable to connect Santa Cruz to the network, either as a one-seat spur with less frequency or as a transfer. And if the old right-of-way still exists between Santa Cruz and Monterey... well, that's the biggest problem out of the way. They'd need to upgrade the tracks themselves and provide electrification, but hey, no land acquisition!
I wouldn't worry about Las Vegas too much. Believe it or not, it's actually a model city for water conservation. I'm super excited to see if Brightline can actually deliver and spur public interest in high-speed rail!
I will believe none of this until they're actually running. The Vegas to LA line has been talked about/worked on/started/stopped/blown up/whatever since the early 00's and I don't think they've even broken ground on such a project, or settled on it.
The obscene cost of land in california mixed with "well no one wants to take a train to X" is just a kiss of death for a project like this.
I'm still of the opinion that the only way we're going to get any serious high speed rail is if we start building it where it's cheap. A line from Vegas to Reno, if logistically/technically possible, would probably do a ton for both cities. They can then hook up to carson and some of the smaller towns inbetween, and I think you'll see growth all around. Eventually if some other state wants to connect, great, but that's their problem.
The "must build to LA" where land is hyper expensive is a doomed prospect from the get go. Like the original rail, it's time to just build where we can and let towns pop up along the way because they're connected.
And yeah, the wiki on the subject isn't exactly confidence inspiring:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brightline_West
It's just constant renames after 2 decades of failure to even break ground.
Edit -
Digging a bit more, hell it's been talked about in various projects since the 70's/80's, so yeah. Not getting my hopes up at all. I know the north/south Cali line is another "they'll talk about it but never do it" project, most recently derailed by Musk's bullshit hyperloop among other more common suspects.
This line has cleared full environmental review. Brightline is leasing the median of the freeway, an established and inexpensive right-of-way. Construction will begin this year, but only if they receive $3.75 billion from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. I believe that they are likely to get most or all of the money they request. If they don't, I think their success in Florida will prompt some private investment. But it would be a major blow not to receive any federal funding, and could potentially kill the project.
The difference between now and decades past is that there was no Bipartisan Infrastructure Law before. This law is giving Amtrak more funding than it has ever received in every year of its entire history—combined. Likewise it allocates tens of billions of dollars in grants for other high-speed rail projects across the country, not just in the Northeast Corridor. It's difficult to convey how momentous Biden's law is: it has the capacity to kickstart a rail transformation in the United States.
California High-Speed Rail is actively under construction. The Central Valley segment has largely been funded already and will likely see full funding. The part we're not sure about is the connections to San Francisco and Los Angeles. I can see that happening with some federal support. (As for the rest of Phase 1, and Phase 2, I'm not as optimistic.)
This is the approach that California High-Speed Rail took, which in hindsight was probably a mistake. There were a bunch of things going on at the time, such as federal money that would expire if they didn't use it immediately (and they could really only use it in the Central Valley). The organization had some legal troubles but was largely mired by mismanagement early on.
In general, it is not optimal to begin construction in remote areas. It is important for planners to use something resembling a city pair gravity model whose resultant construction timeline prioritizes the strongest population center connections. San Francisco to San Jose/Gilroy (even to Sacramento), or San Diego/Anaheim to LA/Burbank, are better free-standing sections of HSR than Merced to Bakersfield, and depending on the route could cost approximately as much. In the United States, it is not cost-effective or politically feasible to build a literal rail to nowhere (à la China HSR); they have to target the biggest population centers. The construction of a high-speed rail line like SF–LA requires significant "bookend" improvements in the metro areas of those cities, in addition to completely new right-of-way in the Central Valley, but the key part is that those "bookend" improvements can and will be used by dramatically more people than a middle-of-nowhere section of track. Of course, Merced, Bakersfield, etc. are cities of some note but they really have nothing on LA and SF. Here are the worst-case scenarios for an approximately equivalent amount of funding, starting in two different places:
While there is a little more upfront cost to starting in a city, it doesn't need to be high if agencies are proactive about reserving right-of-way a few years ahead of time, as well as making better planning decisions overall. (New York wisely did this in the Hudson Yards, and are reaping immense benefits via the Hudson Tunnel Project.) There is a reason we see more investment in the Northeast Corridor than in the middle of rural Pennsylvania, even though both of those are important for a theoretical New York–Chicago HSR line.
Alon Levy describes some of the sources of high American construction costs. It is their main area of research with the Transit Costs Project. This is a uniquely American issue: it's not like other countries don't see cost overruns, but construction in the US is literally 10x more expensive than in Europe or Asia. Part of that is scale, but most of it is bad planning decisions, like building a network in the middle of nowhere rather than making self-sufficient segments in major population centers, and then lacking the money or political will to finish it.
I admit this is encouraging, but Vegas/Nevada is pretty notorious for just not being able to handle anything outside the hotel industry (having literally done a stellar reenactment of The Simpsons monorail episode). I hope they get it done because it's a long overdue upgrade for the nations infrastructure, but I have so few hopes for these longer/more expensive projects.
IF they get it off the ground then they get to worry about all the normal problems of keeping it going through multiple admin's until completed (i think these timelines are also insanely optimistic)
The 2027 timeline is the most questionable part about it to me. The environmental review is completely finished, but even if they do break ground this year as they intend to, a four-year timeline for a 218-mile track is ambitious. Here are some relatively time-efficient high-speed rail schedules in other countries, for comparison:
These are highly cherry-picked examples. Plenty of similar projects took over a decade to complete. China's construction timelines in particular are insane, but you still see remarkably efficient work in Japan, South Korea, and France, to name a few.
Ranges provided because it depends how you count: environmental approval vs. actual track-laying; and some projects do other infrastructure before putting down track, etc. Emphasis on the higher end of the range. I'm not familiar enough with each of these systems to claim that these are apples-to-apples comparisons. However, this list gives a general sense of the scope Brightline is going for. It's kinda nuts... but still reasonable. There are some wild variations in the amount of time it took to complete projects, which may result from difficulties integrating into existing networks or political issues. Brightline faces minimal obstacles on both fronts.
These examples demonstrate that an uncomplicated 200-mile line could realistically be constructed in around four years. From an engineering standpoint, it's completely feasible as long as there is enough money to do it. The route is mostly flat and there are no plans to stop at intermediate cities (which would require expensive stations). As far as I'm aware, it doesn't require any tunnels of note. It'll also be mostly single-tracked, which may or may not involve some complicated siding schedule charts but does keep the cost down slightly. At this point, on-time completion depends 100% on the $3.75 billion grant request from the federal government. If the Biden administration agrees to it, the project will most likely complete on schedule. Once the money is allocated, it doesn't particularly matter who's elected president next term; Brightline will already have been given the grant.
Admittedly, in addition to some private funding, Brightline has extra motivation: the 2028 Olympics. While there are often engineering challenges associated with high-speed rail projects, the route Brightline has selected is relatively straightforward. This signals to me that any potential slowdowns would largely be a result of missing funds: in theory, in the event of a potential delay, a California or United States government interested in making a good impression before the international community could allocate some speed-money to the project to ensure it remains on track. (The LGV Sud Europe Atlantique is an example of how cash inflow from the government can cut a construction timeline in half.) I'm still not going to say I believe they'll be done in 2027, but I think it's plausible that trains will be operational before summer 2028.
Love seeing this investment in high speed rail in this country. I'm super hopeful for the CAHSR as it's the system closest to me. I'll be honest, I'm a bit surprised by how they've been able to hit all their milestones so far without too much delay. Hope they can finish things on time!
The Texas system is also super interesting to me. Texas highways are a wild-west and having high-speed rail that would smash the driving time would be cool to see. Hope the state can see the value in a properly built and maintained HSR system and get one built!
Mirror for those hit by the paywall:
https://archive.ph/wo4ep