It’s official, Brightline West to break ground on high-speed rail project this month

Rene Ray De La Cruz, Victorville Daily Press
Updated 4 min read
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Brightline West will officially break ground this month on its $12 billion high-speed rail project between Las Vegas and Southern California.

The historic groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. Monday at the future Brightline West station site in Las Vegas, Nevada, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

Brightline West’s flagship station will be located on 110-acres north of Blue Diamond Road, between I-15 and Las Vegas Boulevard and south of Harry Reid International Airport.

Expected speakers at the groundbreaking event include the U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Brightline founder and chairman Wes Edens and federal, state and local officials from California and Nevada.

Brightline officials said its California/Nevada project received a financial boost in December when President Biden announced $3 billion in funding from the Administration’s historic Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Brightline West will connect Las Vegas and Southern California with the first true high-speed passenger rail system in the nation, the company said.

Brightline West officials did not reveal a construction timeline or groundbreaking events in Southern California.

Groundbreaking on the Brightline West project was originally scheduled to begin in 2020 but was stalled when the company postponed a planned $2.4 billion bond sale for project. Brightline West officials blamed the delay on market instability because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

Ground breaking dates were also expected in 2021, 2022 and 2023, but never came to fruition.

Artist rendering of the Brightline West high-speed rail train station in Rancho Cucamonga.
Artist rendering of the Brightline West high-speed rail train station in Rancho Cucamonga.

California stations

The all-electric rail service will also include passenger stations in Apple Valley, Hesperia, and Rancho Cucamonga.

The Victor Valley Station will be located 300 acres southeast of the Dale Evans Parkway and I-15 interchange in Apple Valley. The station may serve as the future hub for connecting to the High Desert Corridor and California High-Speed Rail systems, the company said.

The Hesperia Station will be located within the I-15 median at the I-15/Joshua Street interchange. The station will function primarily as a local rail service for High Desert residents making trips into greater Los Angeles on select southbound morning and northbound evening weekday trains.

The Rancho Cucamonga Station will be located on 5 acres at the northwest corner of Milliken Avenue and Azusa Court near Ontario International Airport. The station will be co-located with existing multi-modal transportation options, including Metrolink, for connectivity to downtown Los Angeles and other destinations throughout Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

High-speed rail

Brightline West will break ground this month on its $12 billion high-speed rail project between Las Vegas and Southern California.
Brightline West will break ground this month on its $12 billion high-speed rail project between Las Vegas and Southern California.

Fieldwork for the proposed rail corridor within the Interstate 15 right-of-way began in January in advance of the final stages of design in preparation for the groundbreaking.

In 2020, Brightline West officials entered into a lease agreement with Caltrans to use the existing right of way along I-15 for the $12 billion, 218-mile high-speed rail project.

At speeds up to 200 miles per hour, trains will take passengers 218 miles from Las Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga in about two hours, twice as fast as the normal drive time, Brightline officials said.

Trains are expected to operate daily at one-hour intervals. A trip between Hesperia and Rancho Cucamonga is expected to take about 35 minutes.

The rail line will be powered via overhead electric catenary wiring, with a power substation set to be built near Hesperia.

Brightline founder Wes Edens told the Los Angeles Times that his company will have to charge $400 for a round-trip ticket between Rancho Cucamonga and Las Vegas. Edens added that they are still testing out prices, so nothing is official, but the cost could change depending on the time of booking.

Artist rendering of the Victor Valley Brightline West high-speed rail train station in Apple Valley.
Artist rendering of the Victor Valley Brightline West high-speed rail train station in Apple Valley.

Job opportunities

In partnership with unions and governed by project labor agreements, the Brightline West project is expected to create over 10,000 union construction jobs, most not requiring a college degree.

Inclusive of jobs that go into materials production, transportation, and other key elements to constructing the system, the project will support more than 35,000 jobs across the construction period.

At operations, Brightline West is expected to support over 1,000 permanent jobs in operations and maintenance, about 900 of those being full-time union jobs.

Brightline’s goal is completion of the rail system by summer 2028, in time for the summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the company said.

Daily Press reporter Rene Ray De La Cruz may be reached at RDeLaCruz@VVDailyPress.com. Follow him on Twitter @DP_ReneDeLaCruz

This article originally appeared on Victorville Daily Press: Brightline West to break ground on high-speed rail project this month

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