Latest news with #BrightlineWest
Time of India
8 hours ago
- Business
- Time of India
California High-Speed Rail project now has a $4 billion Trump roadblock
California's High-Speed Rail project faces uncertainty as the Trump administration threatens to revoke nearly $4 billion in federal grants due to a $7 billion funding shortfall and missed deadlines. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads The Trump administration has raised serious concerns about the future of California's ambitious High-Speed Rail project, pointing to a $7 billion funding shortfall that threatens the completion of a key section. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) warned it may revoke nearly $4 billion in federal grants unless the state can address the a 315-page report, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) cited missed deadlines, underestimated costs, and questionable ridership projections. Central to the report is the state's failure to secure the additional $7 billion needed to finish the initial 171-mile segment between Merced and USDOT has given California until mid-July to respond before deciding whether to terminate the California High-Speed Rail Authority, which is overseeing the project, continues construction on the Central Valley section—intended to operate at speeds up to 220 mph (350 km/h) and begin passenger service by of now, more than 60 miles of guideway have been completed, and 54 of the 93 required structures are finished, with over 30 more under construction across Madera, Fresno, Kings, and Tulare the funding concerns, the project has delivered significant economic impact. Since breaking ground, it has generated over 15,000 well-paying construction jobs, the majority of which have gone to Central Valley residents. Around 1,600 workers are deployed to construction sites each Authority has also secured full environmental clearance for 463 miles of track stretching from the Bay Area to downtown Los another high-speed rail project—Brightline West—is underway. This privately funded route will connect Las Vegas to Southern California with trains reaching speeds of 200 mph (320 km/h). It is slated to begin operations in 2028. Both Brightline West and California's state-run rail line recently received about $3 billion each in federal California races to keep its high-speed rail dreams on track, the coming weeks may determine whether it can resolve its financial and operational hurdles or risk losing crucial federal support.
The Guardian
3 days ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Australian high-speed rail has barely left the station – some experts say a new US project shows a better way
Progress has been slow on the proposed high-speed rail line between Sydney and Newcastle since the establishment of the High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) in 2023, and the federal government is yet to commit to building the megaproject. But some experts say there may be a cheaper and easier way to do it, pointing to a US example of what can be achieved. The Newcastle-Sydney high-speed rail line is estimated to cost at least $30bn and take well over a decade to build. The HSRA has spent its infancy developing yet another business case, starting with Sydney-Newcastle, to ultimately form part of a Melbourne-Brisbane line in the second half of this century. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Geotechnical drilling has begun to determine how to tackle the mammoth task of traversing the Hawkesbury River with services that can reach a top speed of 320km/h. Meanwhile, Infrastructure Australia is evaluating its business case and will shortly make a recommendation. By contrast, a longer line linking the eastern outskirts of Los Angeles with Las Vegas at similar speeds is being built for a fraction of the cost and time. The private-led Brightline West represents an approach that is in many ways the polar opposite of how Labor is pursuing the technology in Australia, experts say. With construction estimates soaring, experts are now questioning if Australia is letting perfect be the enemy of good and risking a cost blowout that would crush the chance of the line ever being built. The HSRA plans to establish a service between central Sydney and Newcastle's Broadmeadow, running end-to-end in an hour, with a stop at Gosford. The journey on the existing Newcastle-Sydney line takes about 2.5 hours, almost half an hour longer than an express service achieved in the mid-20th century. The HSRA chief executive, Tim Parker, wants to build dedicated dual tracks so that high-speed trains won't have to interact with slower trains, a contrasting approach to how high-speed rail expanded in most countries. Spain's high-speed train, for example, shares sections of track with slower services. While it must slow down in certain sections, this philosophy presents an opportunity to roll out fast train technology in stages and more cheaply. Not only is building a dedicated line more expensive, the Sydney-Newcastle corridor will require an engineering feat to construct what would be the world's longest rail tunnel to allow trains to cross the Hawkesbury River without compromising speed. 'They've picked a starting stretch that is the hardest and most expensive part of the entire east coast,' says Garry Glazebrook, an associate professor at the University of Technology Sydney. The business case has not yet been made public, but the price tag is expected to be eye-watering. Modelling for the New South Wales government's 2019 plan to build a line without federal help reportedly predicted it would cost about $30bn and take 12 years to build just the first stage from Gosford through the Hawkesbury to a station at Sydney Olympic Park – a cheaper option than Central. The costs proved too great. The then Perrottet government abandoned the plan at the end of 2022. Brightline West broke ground in April 2024. Despite covering a 315km point-to-point distance – nearly three times as long as Newcastle-Sydney – construction is expected to be completed swiftly, with services for the 2hr 10min trip to be operating in time for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. The project's most up-to-date budget is US$12.5bn (about A$19.5bn), already overrun from a 2020 estimate of US$8bn, but still a fraction of the cost of the Australian proposal. Brightline West – owned by Fortress Investment Group – is funded by a mix of equity, private finance, federal government grants and California and Nevada state-issued tax-exempt bonds for private ventures in the public interest. It is entirely unrelated to the California state government's plan for an LA-San Francisco line, which has been held up as an example of disastrous infrastructure projects in the US. Approved in 2008, no track has yet been laid and cost estimates have more than tripled to US$128bn. Donald Trump has vowed to block federal funds previously promised to the LA-San Francisco project, but administration officials appear satisfied with Biden-era commitments to the Brightline model. Those costs and timeframe may appear ambitious, but Brightline has already established a Miami-Orlando line that reaches 200km/h – just shy of the high-speed definition. The first section, between Miami and West Palm Beach, broke ground in 2014 and was in service by 2018. Brightline West's impressive price tag and timeframe are only achievable through several compromises. Most of the line will initially run along a single track with passing loops , reducing speed accordingly. It will also share its corridor with the Interstate 15 Highway. The track will be built down the I-15's median strip, with trains travelling alongside road traffic, similar to a number of existing rail lines in Perth. This delivers serious savings. Building just one track is cheaper, and land acquisition and permissions are streamlined. Perhaps the greatest compromise is that Brightline West will terminate in Rancho Cucamonga, on the eastern outskirts of LA. While avoiding costly construction in built-up urban areas, passengers will need to connect to existing, slower rail to make the 67km journey to Union station in the heart of the city's downtown. Building anything in Australia is expensive, and rail even more so. Alon Levy is the co-lead of the transportation and land use program at New York University's Marron Institute, and researches why construction costs differ between countries. He believes Newcastle-Sydney already has unnecessary costs baked in thanks to overly prescriptive demands from government. 'It's a foolish requirement this early on to not share any tracks with commuter lines,' Levy says. 'You leave less space for the experts to find cheaper workarounds and drive innovation.' Australia's rail industry is another problem, Levy believes. Australian governments rely heavily on consultants for infrastructure planning, a symptom of the hollowing out of departments of expertise. 'This problem is common in Anglosphere governments,' Levy says. They bring in outside consultants who work on one thing then disband and the expertise vanishes.' Levy believes an Australian government – either the commonwealth or NSW – should establish a 'public sector consultant unit' for rail expertise, which it can then provide to other states to work on their projects at cost, a model successfully proven in France and Italy. The profit motive of companies such as Brightline can also bring down costs by pushing the limits of what is possible. 'They go out to the market and challenge their suppliers … to push the technical limits, so trains can move through difficult stretches and save the company from spending billions moving dirt around,' one rail source who requested anonymity says. 'But in Australia, governments want already proven technology, they want a safer bet that is future-proofed, and that often means being overengineered and double the cost necessary. It's always got to be the gold standard.' Rail unions also increase construction and operating costs. 'Unions have enormous say, it's just the way we work in Australia,' Glazebrook says. Union pressure is broadly seen as having pushed NSW to build new metro tracks for driverless trains with a private operator. A separate rail source, unable to be named due to their work, said the new metro extension under Sydney harbour could not have been built had it been subject to existing Sydney Trains union agreements, due to the line's gradient. Herein lies a catch-22, Glazebrook says. By adopting the proven European approach – staged building using existing tracks already subject to union agreements – construction and operation are beholden to stringent standards that increase the cost and timeframes of projects. Building dedicated tracks is a way to bypass such pressures and can allow for the automation of driving and fewer staffing requirements, saving money on operations once the line is running. But construction costs will soar. 'You throw everything together and you get a real bloody mess,' Glazebrook says. Experts are now questioning if Newcastle-Sydney is the smartest place to start. Glazebrook still backs the proposal put by his group, Fastrack Australia, for the HSRA to begin by upgrading the Sydney-Canberra line in stages to high-speed capability. Its easier terrain makes it lower-hanging fruit, even if trains don't run along the Federal Highway's median strip. Others say Canberra-Sydney more closely resembles the value proposition of Brightline West – the potential to capture market share where air or car trips have dominated. Taxpayers currently foot the huge travel bill of bureaucrats and politicians flying between Canberra and Sydney. The existing train service takes about four and a half hours – a 90-minute high-speed alternative could attract that business to rail instead. The existing Newcastle-Sydney service – ticketed at $11 – takes only an hour and a half longer than the proposed high-speed trip. While local rail experts are not proposing to copy Brightline's model exactly, most agree there are attitudes worth adopting to avoid Australia's high-speed rail ambition being shelved. 'We don't want to let perfect be the enemy of the good,' Glazebrook says.
Newsweek
27-05-2025
- Business
- Newsweek
How Donald Trump Could Boost US High-Speed Rail
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. President Donald Trump has the chance to cement his legacy by laying the groundwork for a "17,000-mile high-speed rail network" across the United States, according to former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Speaking to Newsweek at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's 2025 annual conference in Washington, D.C., LaHood, who worked in the Obama administration, said he was "heartened by some of the things" Trump has said about high-speed rail, and urged him to "send a signal" by vocally backing one or more proposed high speed rail lines. He said such a move would unlock "private dollars and state dollars" which would help high speed rail "take off much quicker than it is right now." Newsweek has contacted the White House press office for comment. The U.S. High Speed Rail Association (USHSR) is a campaign group, including both industry and labor representatives, that advocates on behalf of the American high speed rail industry. The State of U.S. High Speed Rail Currently, the U.S. doesn't have any functioning high speed rail lines, which the International Union of Railways (UIC) defines as operating at a minimum of 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour) on specially built tracks. This puts the U.S. behind the likes of France, Spain, Japan and China all of which have advanced high speed rail networks, with the latter operating nearly 30,000 miles worth of high-speed rail track, the vast majority of which was built over the past two decades. Two high speed rail lines are currently under construction in the U.S.—California High Speed Rail, which is intended to link Los Angeles to San Francisco, and Brightline West, a project to connect Las Vegas to southern California. However, a plethora of other proposals have been made including plans to link Dallas, Houston, and Fort Worth in Texas, Eugene, Oregon, to Vancouver in Cascadia and Boston, New York and Washington D.C. in the Northeast. President Trump could turbocharge U.S high speed rail by sending "a signal" to attract private funding, according to former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. President Trump could turbocharge U.S high speed rail by sending "a signal" to attract private funding, according to former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. Newsweek Illustration/Canva/Associated Press/Getty Former Transportation Secretary LaHood's Hopes There was widespread concern among attendees at the USHSR annual conference that Trump's second term could stymie American high speed rail plans, but LaHood, a Republican who served as Obama's transportation secretary from 2009 to 2013, struck a more optimistic note. LaHood told Newsweek he had been "heartened by some of the things I've heard President Trump say" about high-speed rail, adding he "seems enthused about [the] Las Vegas to Los Angeles" project. This plan, Brightline West, is being built between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga in southern California, but there is also a plan to link it to the Los Angeles to San Francisco line via a "high desert corridor." The former transportation secretary said that a clear signal from Trump in support of one or more high speed rail projects would help to unlock private and state funding. "I think the success of these projects in Europe and Asia is largely due to the national government making investments but then encouraging the private sector," LaHood said. "Once the national government makes a commitment its easier for the private sector then—they know it's going to be a stable project, they know their investment is going to be good." Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaking at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's 2025 annual conference in Washington D.C. Former Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood speaking at the U.S. High Speed Rail Association's 2025 annual conference in Washington D.C. James Bickerton/Newsweek He added: "I think if President Trump sent a signal to Texas Central or sent a signal to national government has to be positive and has to make a commitment for dollars in order to then attract the kind of private dollars and state dollars that it takes to make these projects happen. If that kind of commitment were made by national government boom, I think high speed rail would take off much quicker than it is right now." LaHood pointed to the success of Brightline, a privately owned and operated rail line connecting Miami and Orlando that opened in 2023. While it runs at below the high-speed standard, Brightline was the first privately built rail line in the U.S. to begin operations in a century and has seen its passenger number surge since its launch. "If you look at the Brightline project in Florida between Miami and Orlando, now it's not high-speed rail but it is wildly popular," the former transportation secretary said. "They're putting more and more trains on that track every day because people like the idea that they don't have to get on the I-95. "If you build it, they will come, if you build it, it will be successful and I think that will be the case with Brightline West, Las Vegas to LA, and I think it will be true San Francisco to LA. I think they will be wildly popular. I really believe at this point if you build it, they will come and the proof of that is Europe and Asia. Their trains are wildly popular." Trump and High-Speed Rail Trump's positions on high-speed rail have been mixed over the years. In August 2024, the then Republican presidential candidate praised "unbelievably fast" bullet trains that had "no problems" in other countries. "We don't have anything like that in this country, not even close, and it doesn't make sense that we don't. Doesn't make sense," Trump said. Then-U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill February 24, 2010, in Washington, D.C. Then-U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood testifies before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing on Capitol Hill February 24, 2010, in Washington, D.C. Mark Wilson/GETTY Last month however, Trump's Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy cut $63.9 million in federal funding that was being provided to support the Texas Central proposed high-speed rail line between Dallas and Houston, describing it as "a waste of taxpayer funds." Texas Central insists it was not reliant on the funding and is continuing with its plans. Trump has also been harshly critical of the California High Speed Rail project designed to link Los Angeles to San Francisco claiming it had the "worst overruns that there have ever been in the history of our country." During his first term, Trump slashed $1 billion of funding for the project, which was later restored under President Joe Biden. In February, Duffy said he was launching a review into whether the project "followed through on the commitments it made to receive billions of dollars in federal funding" and if not whether the money should be spent elsewhere. The U.S. High Speed Rail Association paid travel and hotel expenses for Newsweek reporter James Bickerton to attend its 2025 annual conference.
The Independent
23-05-2025
- Automotive
- The Independent
With 160mph trains launching on the East Coast - is America finally on track for a high-speed rail network?
The European Union has 5,316 miles of high-speed rail, China's network exceeds 31,000 miles, while America has a high-speed line mileage of zero. But the high-speed rail revolution may well be underway in the U.S., with some in the industry quietly optimistic that one day the country will have a comprehensive network of high-speed trains. Work has begun on Brightline West, a line costing $12 billion that will run from Las Vegas to an outer suburb of Los Angeles. When it launches in December 2028, it will be the first-ever 186mph train in the States. And California is building a $128 billion, 220mph line that will take passengers from Los Angeles to San Francisco in under three hours when it begins operations sometime between 2031 and 2033. Rick Harnish, the Executive Director of the High Speed Rail Alliance, stresses to The Independent that there is "no doubt" that Brightline West will be a catalyst for other high-speed projects, the definition of "high speed" generally acknowledged as above 150mph. Rick also points to the imminent launch of Amtrak's 160mph Acela trains as a crucial step in the right direction for high-speed rail in America. These trains, due to debut in the next few weeks, will serve the Northeast Corridor, from Washington, D.C. to Boston via New York. Rick explains that because "it's an old corridor that has slowly been rebuilt, there are different speeds in different places". He continues: "Mostly it's 110mph. But there is one short section near Princeton in New Jersey where they can get to 150mph and a short [150mph] section in Connecticut. "The Northeast Corridor has gotten the most significant funding for passenger rail for decades. We would call that regional rail, but it's important." Features on the new Acela trains include onboard café cars, Wi-Fi, in-seat USB ports and plug sockets, winged headrests that Amtrak says "provide more comfort and separation", and seat covers made out of recycled leather. Plus, there's an interactive reservation system that will allow passengers to change their seats using the Amtrak app. As swish as the new Acela trains will be, Rick believes that it's the high-speed projects on dedicated lines that will help "change the way people travel across the country". One major obstacle is that traveling by road or air is embedded from the top down in America. A cultural and political shift will be needed for a high-speed rail network to flourish. Rick says, "The federal government has forced us to focus on moving cars fast, not on building communities that are healthy, productive, and enjoyable places to live." In a blog post, the High Speed Rail Alliance blames "perverse incentive structures and feedback loops" for America's rail system lagging behind Europe and China's. It said: "The industries that profit from building more congested highways and airports fund political campaigns and think tanks devoted to lobbying legislatures for more highways and airports. "Naturally, policymakers are responsive to the people who fund their campaigns and rationalize their policy priorities." A case in point, US Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy recently described a proposed high-speed line between Houston and Dallas as a "waste of taxpayers' money". New York-based author Will Doig — who wrote High-Speed Empire, Chinese Expansion, and the Future of Southeast Asia — agrees with the High Speed Rail Alliance, telling The Independent that "political will and government funding are the prime suspects" behind high-speed rail inertia. But he name-checks other factors, too. He continues: "There are other reasons American infrastructure has stalled. For instance, environmental impact assessments have ironically become a tool that any group can use to delay or kill a project they don't like, even if that project would ultimately have a net-benefit for the environment." Does he think Americans can ever be fully converted to rail travel? Will replies: "We know that people will take the train if the infrastructure makes it worth it. We know this because they already do: train travel is commonplace in the Northeast, where rail is often the fastest and most convenient option. "But in most other parts of the U.S, rail is a third-rate option, plagued by delays and slow trains. "Asking Americans to choose that option over flying or driving is unrealistic. "We shouldn't be asking whether Americans will ever convert to train travel, we should be asking whether America will ever provide railways worth converting to. When things work well, people use them."
Bloomberg
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Trump's Funding Threats Build a Case for Private High-Speed Rail
Green Climate Politics While California High-Speed Rail's federal funding is in doubt, privately led Brightline West has been chugging along. California has helped create much of the technology powering the 21st century. But travel between Los Angeles and San Francisco by train still feels trapped in the past. Now, the state's plan to modernize that corridor — a long-promised high-speed rail line — is facing its most serious threat yet. President Donald Trump has called the project 'stupid' and vowed to block $4 billion in federal funds, escalating a broader push by his administration to withdraw support from mass transit initiatives across the country. 'This government is not going to pay," he said earlier this month.
