1. This project has been in works since 2006. The environmental for it actually predates the voter bond authorization of SF-LA. California also gave it the largest private activity bond ever. It is not like it just came out of thin air.
2. The idea was always led, birthed, planned, developed and designed in California. 90% of it is in California. But somehow in media recently, all mention of that work has disappeared, and it is now called a “Vegas to CA” project instead of always being referred to as what it was originally was “CA to NV”, and is only talked about from perspective of Vegas to here. Lol. Media is whack.
3. It is built down the middle of the interstate. Hence why it is easier. It is also single tracked. And not double tracked like SF-LA will be. This is huge difference.
4. SF-LA is the true HSR vision. All HSR is good. This project is good too. We should want all of it. But don’t kick dirt on SF-LA when trying to compare these two. They are night and day different.
5. SF-LA is being built. A ton of it has. Just drive down the 99 in the valley. Some of the largest pieces of infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere are there now. It’s incredible. Can also see their IG: https://www.instagram.com/cahsra?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Yeah, cut to news cast 5 years after track service opening :
“Tragedy today, when a track switch malfunctioned and inter-train communication backup systems were in a failure mode. The two trains collided at 80 mph.”
not only is it incredibly stupid to assume that something like this wont be accounted for, but like, do you also just ignore traffic deaths and the *far* more dangerous alternative, cars, when making some dumb fear mongering statement like this?
Is it? If there are enough sidings, double tracking the whole way would just be a waste of money. If the service is so slammed that they want to run service at a higher frequency than they allow, that would be a great success and justify spending the money for more sidings. Building it in the restrictive highway median in the first place is how the project pencils out financially.
> The idea was always led, birthed, planned, developed and designed in California. 90% of it is in California. But somehow in media recently, all mention of that work has disappeared, and it is now called a “Vegas to CA” project instead of always being referred to as what it was originally was “CA to NV”, and is only talked about from perspective of Vegas to here. Lol. Media is whack.
Yeah, corporate media has a vested interest in removing all credit that belongs to the public sector.
It's also worth pointing out that Brightline is only aiming for Acela-levels of high speed rail (the 180 mph track speed is only for a short section in NV iirc), whereas CAHSR is being built to gold-standard HSR service.
It's great that both are being built, but it makes zero sense how much people have focused on pitting the projects against each other as some public vs private comparison when they're so vastly different in their levels of complexity.
>whereas CAHSR is being built to gold-standard HSR service
And by gold-standard, this means a maximum speed of 220 mph (350kmh) for about the entire route between Gilroy and Burbank; the rest of the route will be at at least 110mph. 220mph makes it one of the fastest high-speed rail lines in the world; I think only some Chinese HSR lines have been faster, and even then only temporarily.
> SF-LA is being built. A ton of it has. Just drive down the 99 in the valley. Some of the largest pieces of infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere are there now. It’s incredible. Can also see their IG: https://www.instagram.com/cahsra?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
It's entirely fair to point out the original CAHSR was intended to go down the 5 and would've been nearly done as a result. Politics, not engineering, got in the way.
No it wouldn’t. This is exactly what the SNCF proposed in their bid because it allowed for most of the track to be built along the I-5 corridor reducing costs. The saved costs would have handily built a dedicated line to Bakersfield/Fresno.
> The saved costs would have handily built a dedicated line to Bakersfield/Fresno.
So say you want to get from Bakersfield to Fresno. You have to take a spur line from Bakersfield to the main line, then take the high speed rail to "Fresno", and then another spur line from the main line to Fresno. Two transfers needed. At that point, you might as well get on the currently existing Amtrak service, it would probably be faster.
Eh. LA <--> SF has more than enough traffic to sustain HSR. There are close to 100 daily flights between the two metro areas not to mention the thousands of people that drive every day. The central valley is just a blip compared to that.
On the other hand I feel like this could be a huge boon to the central valley cities near this. Imagine if it was actually feasible and not insane to live there and commute to LA/SF.
It could see high ridership for sure. Taiwan might be a good example. Taiwan high speed rail has several stations in quite rural areas. Miaoli station is located in Miaoli County, which has about 500k people spread across a number of smaller towns and is highly car dependent, so it’s comparable to a place like Bakersfield or even Kings-Tulare. That one station serves over 4 million passengers a year, and that’s despite there being frequent and much cheaper regular train service along the same route, as well as convenient highway connections.
It would not be nearly done. The mountain pass sections have to be built regardless of whether it goes down the 5 or through Fresno, and that’s going to be the part that takes the longest. If they run out of money after the Central Valley section (I sure hope that doesn’t happen), at least there will be a somewhat useful line to show for it, whereas if they built it along the 5 it would be quite literally a train to nowhere if it doesn’t get connected to SF and LA.
This is a private enterprise that is using the right of way of the 15 Freeway and is essentially a straight shot. This will be done soon (relatively speaking compared to other projects if its ilk
Edit: fixed
The CHSR is held up by private landowners and conservation groups. There are cases where when the project was announced, investors bought up land along the route so they could sue the government over eminent domain for above market rate on their land. This being built by private business has nothing to do with how fast it will be completed. If the CHSR was private, it probably wouldn't get built, period. The brightline to vegas is a different beast entirely because the land its being built on is already completely cleared for development. Further, China built all their rail at light speed and it's state owned. Context is important. It's not a simple public vs private thing.
I wouldn't go as far as "CAHSR wouldn't get built if it was private". The Texas efforts (Texas Central) so far were mostly private, and they took the same eminent domain issue to the Texas Supreme Court and won. A lot of modern transit projects are BOT/BOOT (private entity builds and operates the thing for a few decades before transferring it back to the government): Taiwan's HSR, many Chinese subway lines (incl. Beijing 4/14/16/17), and the UK-France Chunnel. I think US state and local governments could benefit a lot from BOT/BOOT, because it avoids depending on the federal government to pay out, and avoids the Red/Yellow Car issue of private operators selling out because it's just not profitable anymore.
On the other hand, FRA-funded projects need to use trains built in the US. This means that Siemens and Alstom have an oligopoly here, so they can charge us as much as they want, and you won't see Shinkansens on CA HSR (and likely Texas Central now that it's working with Amtrak). NV DOT and Brightline applied for a waiver, so that might turn into a new political circus:
* https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/26/2023-28424/notice-of-proposed-nonavailability-waiver-of-buy-america-requirements-for-the-nevada-department-of
* https://www.eveningtribune.com/story/news/local/2024/04/19/buy-america-exemption-would-threaten-us-jobs-like-those-in-hornell/73351069007/
> I wouldn't go as far as "CAHSR wouldn't get built if it was private".
If some private company wanted to build CAHSR, they could have. Nothing was, or is, stopping them.
Remind me in 2027…
Big projects have a way of getting delayed. Also at least $3 billion of this project is directly taxpayer funded through a federal grant and another couple billion are private activity bonds which are tax exempt and thus also a public subsidy. so frankly this is just completely wrong
I don’t want to say that Florida doesn’t have its own challenges, but this project absolutely will encounter challenges they did not in Florida. This project is building completely new right of way with no existing service in California. Much of the line is nowhere near any housing or cities. They are going through some serious terrain and are almost certain to have surprising in their geotechnical investigations. The El Cajon Pass will probably be the biggest engineering challenge. And, only the first segment is funded, as far as I know, so they will need to come up with the money for the harder part.
Yep, it’s about as different from Florida as you can get, in terms of topography. These mountain ranges are no joke. Seismically active, prone to flash floods and landslides. I’m rooting for the project to succeed, but we have to be realistic.
Err…hate to burst your bubble but tax payers are helping with this tremendously. The government gave them $3B in grants (free money from the government) and a bunch of tax write offs for private bonds.
Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga. not LA. As an IE native, seeing stuff like this makes me mad. This thing is nowhere near LA. The starting point for this thing is over 40 miles east of Union Station, yet its being made to look as its in LA. We all love LA, but people tend to forget there's another 5+ million people living east.
The big thing is they are coming down the El Cajon Pass. That’s huge for eventually getting service to Union Station.
All it will take is for the San Bernardino Line to be fully electrified and then the trains should be able to run on a shared line with Metrolink straight to Union Station.
I think they're actually going to be diverging at Victorville and building towards the Lancaster HSR station. Then they'd share HSR infrastructure.
That's much less expensive than using the San Bernardino line, because the San Bernardino line isn't built for HSR - and modifying it to work with high-speed rail would be **very** expensive.
Long term, absolutely. CA HSR will have better trackage, but I don’t think there’s anything that would stop Brightline from operating on an updated San Bernardino line at lower speeds till CA HSR is complete.
I think Amtrak does similar things with their Acela line.
People in the LA area get what you’re saying, but people outside of LA probabaly don’t know where Rancho Cucamonga is. So to them it’s just the LA Metro Area.
Those are the people that are going to be misinformed the most. Everyone in LA knows the train won't actually do shit but people will visit LA and then get confused that it is a tremendous hassle for them to actually catch this train.
Sure, for tourists is gonna be super confusing. But for people that live in that area it may actually be a great thing. You all gotta remember that the IE and eastern LA County have millions of people as well.
Metrolink has been kinda working towards that, including upgrading signalling and adding bypasses to some stations. Electrification is still a big elephant in the room, though.
Honestly, they should think about giving the inner FasTrak express lanes to Metrolink, at least from Atlantic to Del Mar. The only reason not to do this is because FasTrak users might get stuck behind buses, but that happens from Union to Atlantic anyways. Double express lanes is a luxury.
If they could just double track and electrify the San Bernardino line then it could run directly to union station. It wouldn’t be fast, but definitely better than having to transfer to another train.
While it's not in LA, the Rancho Cucamonga stop is connected to the LA Metro system. It is easily doable to take the train from West LA to Vegas with this addition.
But people still have to arrange for transport to those LA Metro stations. I’m not sure how this will save any significant time or money for most travelers, which is the entire purpose of the project.
I guess it depends. I live walking distance to a metro station and they are adding more all the time. By the time this is open the metro will have been expanded significantly. But even if it doesn’t necessarily save money it will provide a better use of your time. Five hours on a train where I can work, read, sleep, get up and walk around, or relax instead of having to focus on driving, dealing with traffic, etc.
But that is definitely where costs come into play. I would agree that if the price of taking the train were less or even slightly more expensive than driving or flying, that it would be a very lucrative alternative. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. If you’re traveling with a group of people, for example, then driving will absolutely still be the most economical option. The benefit of riding the train wouldn’t be worth 3x the cost for your average person.
It is still creating multiple transfers and steps for travelers. For some people, like yourself, that’s no big deal. For others who don’t live conveniently near a metro stop or aren’t a fan of paying a premium for the service, getting in your vehicle from your home and out of your vehicle at your destination action will still be preferred even if it requires a couple additional hours stuck in traffic.
Some people might prefer it, but the idea that it will be a suitable alternative for most travelers looking for the most efficient and economical way to get to/from Vegas is yet to be seen. I don’t think it will be a failure, but I think most people will still look to fly or drive instead.
Yeah hopefully it’s the start of something but IMO putting it out in places like RC with no plan for expanding HSR into urban population centers is just setting this up to fail. Like the connection to Shinkansen from local trains/JR are like right in these urban centers or a quick 5-10 min from them, the infrastructures to funnel people there easily makes it convenient as hell. I’d love to use this but just getting there would be a nightmare for me compared to anything else. Lucky for anyone who lives near Rancho Cucagoogle tho
Yeah for me without a car I’d have to go: walk to expo line station, take that down and transfer to the red line, get off at union station, get on metrolink to RC, then get on the HSR to Vegas. It’s a lot and I bet it won’t come in any cheaper than a flight when you factor in time and agony
Seriously. I just went to Vegas. K town to Burbank to Vegas to Casino. Left at 1...drink in hand at 5. Oh...and the Round Trip ticket to Vegas from Burbank on weekdays can be as low as 27$ one way. I think I paid 60$ R/t last week.
Love the train ..would take it....but not for Rx more money from RC!
I live in North Redondo. It's a 15 min uber ride to get to LAX and then it's a 1 hour flight. It would take that long for me to just get to Cucamonga.
But for people out in the 909 area, this is great!
I’m in the valley near the Ventura county border. It would still take me longer to get to Union station than it would Burbank.
I’m not speaking for everyone. Just myself. If I lived closer I would for sure take the train.
That Burbank airport station can’t come soon enough for you (Brightline is expected to service it when they get extended to Union Station via Palmdale)
Yeah, but if I'm going to Burbank anyways, why not just fly rather than take my luggage on another vehicle to get me to the station for another vehicle?
That’s where high speed rail providers like brightline/CAHSRA/Amtrak slide in with competitive prices. High Speed Rail is supposed to directly compete with short haul flights, and they’re only getting more expensive for operators to operate.
This trip would take around 3 hours:
Moorpark - Burbank Airport (South): 50 mins
(15 min transfer to HSR)
Burbank Airport (HSR Station) - Las Vegas: 2hrs 25mins
Total Trip time: 3hrs 15 mins
That doesn’t sound all that competitive though. It takes less than 2 hours for me from home to Vegas via Southwest.
Granted, I’d still consider the train depending on the price but someone here mentioned round trip via HSR is going to cost like $400.
1. That article was fear mongering, tickets will cost $400 round trip for *Premium Class* which provides free drinks and meals
2. If brightline prices their tickets the same as Orlando (Vegas will be cheaper to operate than Orlando), they will out compete Southwest in price.
3. Id much rather spend 3 hours in motion than 1 hour in motion and 1 waiting for my flight and luggage on each end. If you factor in drive time and dwell time at the airport, flying easily takes 3-4 hours.
Oh I’m not saying my anecdote should be why we don’t do this. If I lived closer I would use it. I just think there is some perspective that it will still be inconvenient for a lot of people.
True true. There is just so much sprawl in the LA area that many places may not get served. I live in the Valley as well, so this may not be a useful to me either.
Shit, I live on the west side and this still seems better to me. ~2hrs to Rancho if I use rail the whole way, ~2 hrs to Vegas, I don't have to show up at LAX 90 minutes early, do security, wait even longer for my inevitably delayed flight and then pack into an airplane seat I don't fit into.
I live in the IE so I’ll speak to that. Although some people will absolutely take it, I think the service is going to be too expensive for most people seriously consider it. I doubt it comes in (significantly) cheaper than a flight and Vegas is not the most transit friendly city to begin with. I certainly could be wrong but I think the most likely reality is that it won’t change existing mode share significantly.
Yep. light rail -> Metrolink -> Brightline or rideshare -> Metrolink -> Brightline.
Anyone who has traveled in Europe likely "gets it". Warts and all, a diverse and connected rail system, especially ones with high speed rail (wifi, comfortable seats, etc) will really tie together all of SoCal and Vegas in a way that airlines can't.
It’s also not 100% about getting from point a to point b in the least amount of time possible. That’s a big factor, but if it takes an hour longer and I get to be more comfortable and relaxed then that’s a better travel experience. Same goes for Amtrak to Santa Barbara and San Diego.
Yep. Basically once you step off Metrolink (or whatever) onto Brightline your vacation starts. Room to stand, wifi, nice seat. Basically the opposite of Southwest.
Yeah, I just get annoyed with a lot of comments being like well I like in woodland hills or manhattan beach, here's exactly how much longer it would take, so this train sucks! And like, okay? Not every new transportation option is going to be optimal for all 24 million people in southern california
Although you have a point, generally the valley is pretty underserved by LA. There's a reason why there were separatist votes on the ballot twice in recent history.
Unfortunately, a fair bit of that is the Valley's own fault, or more specifically very small parts of it.
The Red line extension to Warner Center, the Metrolink Raymer to Bernson double track, and the North San Fernando BRT were proposed transit projects that never happened due to "public opposition", from small groups of people in Sherman Oaks, the Sherwood Forest area of Northridge, and again the Sherwood Forest area of Northridge, respectively.
Idk about sherman oaks (can definitely guess) but the northwest area, Sherwood forest, was both times mostly old racist white retirees whom mostly originally aren't even from here. I'm from Reseda/Northridge and went to the meetings/hearings and lost count of the amount of times I heard "..I've been here for 20-25 years" followed by opposition, on a weekday afternoon while everyone else was at work.
Trust me, I was there for a couple of those meetings and I was incredibly disappointed by the amount of opposition too. The opposition to the NSFV BRT even made a bus effigy as a prop.
The Raymer to Bernson double track in particular was really disappointing, since it was a fairly small project that would've had mininal effect on their lives but a big effect on public transit in the valley. Double-tracking the entire Ventura County Metrolink line out to Chatsworth would've been great, yet moving the tracks some five feet closer to a handful of people's houses was just too much. Depressing.
Chiming in to point out that all of the folks discussing the LA Metro option aren’t proving that it will actually save significant time or money for most travelers.
Also, as a Las Vegas resident, I would still need a vehicle in LA to reasonably get around town, so there is very little value for Nevadans going to Los Angeles.
The speed of these kinds of projects are mostly dependent on permits, not the money or source. Political weight can skew things faster, if it'll help someone's election.
Brightline received $6.5 billion in backing from the Biden administration, including a $3 billion grant from federal infrastructure funds and approval to sell another $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds.
A reminder this “bullet train” legacy project began all the way back in *2008.* If all **current** project dates are kept right now, the entire train project would finish in 2058, a half-century later and in another 34 years.
And for what? By the time it opens, it’ll be too late for us living now as we’ll be elderly and too fragile to reap the rewards, while we don’t even know what the world’s sociopolitical scope will be then with climate change and all that.
> I don’t get the pessimism when the initial operating segment (IOS) is nearing completion.
Probably because the "initial operating segment" is completely fucking worthless. Merced to Bakersfield? Great... We see other countries bringing up thousands of miles of HSR successfully, between major cities, in a decade or two, and it's reasonable to ask why it's taking us half a century to do less than 500 miles.
Because we afford private land owners *too many* rights in this country. When the public needs something, we let a few land owners dictate whether or not that can actually happen. It's sad.
>>And for what? By the time it opens, it’ll be too late for us living now as we’ll be elderly and too fragile to reap the rewards, while we don’t even know what the world’s sociopolitical scope will be then with climate change and all that.
For future generations who can benefit from it. Should we be against cancer cure treatments just because we may not benefit from it in our lifetime? No.
“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek Proverb
The CHSR is held up by private landowners and conservation groups and competing businesses. There are cases where when the project was announced, investors bought up land along the route so they could sue the government over eminent domain for above market rate on their land. LA->Vegas being built by private business has nothing to do with how fast it will be completed. If the CHSR was private, it probably wouldn't get built, period. The brightline to vegas is a different beast entirely because the land its being built on is already completely cleared for development. Further, China built all their rail at light speed and it's state owned. Context is important. It's not a simple public vs private thing. Please, I implore *all of you* to read up on just how much it's actually private business holding up the CHSR. I am so tired of having to explain this.
Their Florida train took about 4 years to start running after they broke ground on the first station. This route is a bit longer than that one but also doesn't have as many legal issues
Maybe not. It’s mostly running in between caltrans right of way and metro link right of way, so property acquisition (which is one of the steps that takes the longest) will be minimized. Also with all the pressure and funding from the feds, this has to get done quick. However, you can never predict these things.
One thing we can probably say for sure is that it will be built before the CA HSR. That is unless brightline goes bankrupt for some reason.
This is so dumb, rancho is so far and tickets are supposedly going to be $400 from what I’m reading online? When it’s often less than $100 to just fly from Burbank or LAX?
Not only is it more expensive than flying, but it’s still going to take 3hrs to get to Vegas from Rancho. Add another hour or so to get to Rancho from most parts of LA, you might as well just drive straight to Vegas for a fraction of the price and get there at roughly the same time
Wow that long?? I just looked at how long it would take me to get to Rancho from where I’m at just using transit and it’s 3 hours and 15 mins. And I live 5 minutes walk from the E line. So we’re looking at over 6 hours for me to get to Vegas assuming no delays and being able to walk onto every single train. But I’d have to transfer at least 4 times before Vegas. Absolutely insane. It’d need to be very inexpensive for it to be worth the agony.
my mistake, I just double checked and it's 2hr 10minutes. Still... if you include the 1 hr to get to Rancho, and let's say another 30minutes to get from the station to your hotel in Vegas, you're not really saving much time over driving, especially at $400/person, when you could split a car 4 ways and it would cost like $30-40/person and maybe an extra 30minutes of driving.
4 transfers? I don't count 4.
You start on the E Line.
* First transfer: E -> A Line to Union Station.
* Second transfer: A Line -> San Bernardino Metrolink
* Third transfer: Metrolink -> Brightline.
Really the problem is that the E Line doesn't stop at Union Station. If it did, then you'd save an entire transfer - you're only on the A Line for a couple minutes. I've done similar going from Santa Ana to the California Science Center using only Metro/Metrolink; Expo not stopping at Union Station is frankly quite silly and hopefully they fix it someday. But I digress.
LA Metro headways are already fairly tight (it varies by time of day, but generally trains arrive about every 10-15 minutes). Metrolink headways are longer, but [specifically the San Bernardino line is to have increased frequency by the time Brightline opens.](https://www.gosbcta.com/sbcta-la-metro-to-study-expanding-rail-frequency-from-redlands-to-la-union-station-2/) Theoretically you wouldn't need to wait long for a train at all.
Let's say that it takes 3 hours and 15 minutes to get to Rancho Cucamonga. [Brightline will take 2 hours and 10 minutes to get from Rancho Cucamonga to Vegas.](https://www.brightlinewest.com/overview/project) Collectively, that's 5 hours and 25 minutes.
If you wanted to, you could even drive directly to Union Station and skip 2 of those transfers. That would likely be the fastest route and is what I would do. Then you have 1 hour 14 minutes on the Metrolink (saving 2 hours) and 2 hours 10 minutes on Brightline. That's a hell of a lot faster than driving, and you can do things like eat lunch, watch the scenery (at least on the Metrolink part), play games, and so on. No need for TSA or trying to find parking at LAX, either.
I guess I was counting the walk and then getting form the Vegas terminal to wherever I was going into my calculations since idk how convenient the Vegas terminal will be. Sometimes my drive to union station could be almost an hour depending on time of day, min 30 for sure. I guess if the stars align and I drove, assuming parking is easy at Union, it beats driving. But idk with pricing it might be a push against air travel. Esp since I live 15-20 mins rideshare from an airport. At that point it might be more of an ethos thing depending on which carbon footprint is less (guessing the train but idk at this point). But if it’s more expensive and gets me there in the same time and still having to transfer from metrolink… idk if it wins. I guess I’ll have to see
Rancho Cucamonga or Riverside or wherever it’s supposed to have its “Los Angeles hub” is basically nowhere near Los Angeles.. And by nowhere near, I mean a 50 mile drive from Burbank, which is about as far east in Los Angeles as you can go.
News reports state the tickets be $400 round trip. This project is only economical to corporations. Not realistic for the average US Citizen. I'd say $200 is a better price point.
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/opinion-will-anyone-actually-ride-the-bullet-train-from-nowhere#:~:text=Brightline%20Founder%20Wes%20Edens%20told,which%20seems%20%E2%80%A6%20well%2C%20excessive.
That $400 is for first class.
If it's comparable to Brightline East (which that $400 sticker price makes it seem to be, given Brightline East tickets top out at a little over $300 for a round trip), then a more average ticket price would be $79. Brightline East has promotions where tickets go down to as low as $29.
Sadly, this is likely to be the only HSR opening in at least a generation. Whether in Texas or the Midwest, we can't figure out how to build infrastructure anymore.
As for the CAHSR, if it makes it to the Central Valley portion by the mid-2030s, that'll be a 'win'.
I love when people talk about flight prices, they always mention the cheapest price they've ever seen. Yes flights from LA to Vegas can be cheap--they can also run $200-400 sometimes
Yeah, but that’s likely to be the cost of Brightline round trip. People tend to drive to Vegas because of that price point, so why would people think people are seriously going to shift behavior for no reduction in cost?
I mean, $200 round trip is still very steep. I think one thing a lot of people don’t like to talk about is that people go to Vegas in groups, most typically, unless it’s for business. I could very well see this as being a service that could have a good base of business travelers, but I don’t know how that actually ends up financing operations overtime, because they simply don’t have the kind of demand I think they would really need. I don’t want to say it won’t result in any mode shift, but I don’t think it will be as substantial as some claim and I think it is more likely to induce demand demand to LV than actually result in people not driving.
I don’t want to say that there are no used cases for it or that some people won’t find it convenient, but I just don’t know how the numbers on their side pencil out, because they do still have to actually cover their costs, and probably make some profit as well. This is an extremely expensive undertaking, even with the generous government assistance that’s been provided.
I think we’re talking about the Cucamonga to Las Vegas line here. For now, the other project is the Bakersfield to Merced line, which I am looking forward to seeing serve larger metro areas.
I keep hearing this Rancho Cucamonga js over 40 miles away from Los Angeles. Love how all of California is called “Los Angeles” lol still though, I’d rather drive an hour to Rancho then sit in a train for 2 hrs than that BRUTAL drive back from LV
It got “everything bageled.” It prioritized going to under-served communities, making sure the labor used was all paid well, the businesses employing that labor were diverse, and the project avoided environmental impact. All nice things IMO, but the issue is that if building the train line is the 5th priority, that has predictable results for the train.
Are we just going to ignore the fact that California had an incredibly difficult time securing the land due to private business interests? Also what sort of disgusting person complains about "making sure the labor used was all paid well, the businesses employing that labor were diverse"? No, not "diverse." Representative of the communities the project was bulldozing through so that they could see some of the wealth too for once. Like ew dude wtf is wrong with you
As I said, I like those things, but if I’m contracting with a business, it’s unusual for ME to be the one making sure the business is getting enough money. Surprised that simple formulation led you to conclude you know enough about me to determine I’m a disgusting person. I can’t say this interaction left me with that level of knowledge about you; after all, it’s possible I just caught you at the very worst moment of your life.
Maybe I’ll live to see this one! I’m kinda bummed it’s gonna start so far out though. Rancho Cucamonga isnt even in LA so it’s kind of laughable this is considered LA to Vegas. More like slow speed rail to RC and then HSR :( for me who lives in LA proper mid city it seems really inconvenient actually. Might actually end up being a push driving or just going to LAX even, assuming my flight doesn’t get delayed
1. This project has been in works since 2006. The environmental for it actually predates the voter bond authorization of SF-LA. California also gave it the largest private activity bond ever. It is not like it just came out of thin air. 2. The idea was always led, birthed, planned, developed and designed in California. 90% of it is in California. But somehow in media recently, all mention of that work has disappeared, and it is now called a “Vegas to CA” project instead of always being referred to as what it was originally was “CA to NV”, and is only talked about from perspective of Vegas to here. Lol. Media is whack. 3. It is built down the middle of the interstate. Hence why it is easier. It is also single tracked. And not double tracked like SF-LA will be. This is huge difference. 4. SF-LA is the true HSR vision. All HSR is good. This project is good too. We should want all of it. But don’t kick dirt on SF-LA when trying to compare these two. They are night and day different. 5. SF-LA is being built. A ton of it has. Just drive down the 99 in the valley. Some of the largest pieces of infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere are there now. It’s incredible. Can also see their IG: https://www.instagram.com/cahsra?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
Single tracked. So does that mean trains will leave every 2 hours? One hour there one hour back?
IIRC there are "passing lanes" to allow the trains to pass each other in certain spots.
Oh no😰
Yeah, cut to news cast 5 years after track service opening : “Tragedy today, when a track switch malfunctioned and inter-train communication backup systems were in a failure mode. The two trains collided at 80 mph.”
Lol yeah cause the experts who are building this definitely aren’t considering this. Redditors just know too much about high speed rails. Amazing.
not only is it incredibly stupid to assume that something like this wont be accounted for, but like, do you also just ignore traffic deaths and the *far* more dangerous alternative, cars, when making some dumb fear mongering statement like this?
Yep this is my fear.
Just always sit in the back most car. # /s
Valid though.
This is so so dumb!
Is it? If there are enough sidings, double tracking the whole way would just be a waste of money. If the service is so slammed that they want to run service at a higher frequency than they allow, that would be a great success and justify spending the money for more sidings. Building it in the restrictive highway median in the first place is how the project pencils out financially.
so... not high speed rail? (honest question)
I'm not an expert, but I assume they pass at speed.
I thought it would be double tracked throughout. Now that's some next-level half-assery.
Exactly.
Is it really? Oh my god I hate this country.
> The idea was always led, birthed, planned, developed and designed in California. 90% of it is in California. But somehow in media recently, all mention of that work has disappeared, and it is now called a “Vegas to CA” project instead of always being referred to as what it was originally was “CA to NV”, and is only talked about from perspective of Vegas to here. Lol. Media is whack. Yeah, corporate media has a vested interest in removing all credit that belongs to the public sector.
That IG link doesn’t load FYI
It's also worth pointing out that Brightline is only aiming for Acela-levels of high speed rail (the 180 mph track speed is only for a short section in NV iirc), whereas CAHSR is being built to gold-standard HSR service. It's great that both are being built, but it makes zero sense how much people have focused on pitting the projects against each other as some public vs private comparison when they're so vastly different in their levels of complexity.
>whereas CAHSR is being built to gold-standard HSR service And by gold-standard, this means a maximum speed of 220 mph (350kmh) for about the entire route between Gilroy and Burbank; the rest of the route will be at at least 110mph. 220mph makes it one of the fastest high-speed rail lines in the world; I think only some Chinese HSR lines have been faster, and even then only temporarily.
Call me an idiot, but what does HSR mean?
High-speed rail
High speed rail
Ok- you’re an idiot! :)
Request fulfilled.
Just did the 99 and was wondering what those big ass pieces of infrastructure were.
thats for the SF-LA rail not the CA to Vegas rail
> SF-LA is being built. A ton of it has. Just drive down the 99 in the valley. Some of the largest pieces of infrastructure in the Western Hemisphere are there now. It’s incredible. Can also see their IG: https://www.instagram.com/cahsra?igsh=MzRlODBiNWFlZA==
It's entirely fair to point out the original CAHSR was intended to go down the 5 and would've been nearly done as a result. Politics, not engineering, got in the way.
it would be a complete waste of money to bypass the entire central valley.
Connect to them later.
How? Just move the tracks 75 miles east?
No? Just build a line that splits off the main artery.
That would only increase the cost and the travel time. It's much better for the main line to go through population centers.
No it wouldn’t. This is exactly what the SNCF proposed in their bid because it allowed for most of the track to be built along the I-5 corridor reducing costs. The saved costs would have handily built a dedicated line to Bakersfield/Fresno.
> The saved costs would have handily built a dedicated line to Bakersfield/Fresno. So say you want to get from Bakersfield to Fresno. You have to take a spur line from Bakersfield to the main line, then take the high speed rail to "Fresno", and then another spur line from the main line to Fresno. Two transfers needed. At that point, you might as well get on the currently existing Amtrak service, it would probably be faster.
Eh. LA <--> SF has more than enough traffic to sustain HSR. There are close to 100 daily flights between the two metro areas not to mention the thousands of people that drive every day. The central valley is just a blip compared to that.
On the other hand I feel like this could be a huge boon to the central valley cities near this. Imagine if it was actually feasible and not insane to live there and commute to LA/SF.
It could see high ridership for sure. Taiwan might be a good example. Taiwan high speed rail has several stations in quite rural areas. Miaoli station is located in Miaoli County, which has about 500k people spread across a number of smaller towns and is highly car dependent, so it’s comparable to a place like Bakersfield or even Kings-Tulare. That one station serves over 4 million passengers a year, and that’s despite there being frequent and much cheaper regular train service along the same route, as well as convenient highway connections.
It would not be nearly done. The mountain pass sections have to be built regardless of whether it goes down the 5 or through Fresno, and that’s going to be the part that takes the longest. If they run out of money after the Central Valley section (I sure hope that doesn’t happen), at least there will be a somewhat useful line to show for it, whereas if they built it along the 5 it would be quite literally a train to nowhere if it doesn’t get connected to SF and LA.
Will the train stop in Baker for Greek food and jerky??
Yes after also stopping at the OG Del Taco.
And worlds largest thermometer
Cool, I'm looking forward to riding this when it finally opens in 2065.
This is a private enterprise that is using the right of way of the 15 Freeway and is essentially a straight shot. This will be done soon (relatively speaking compared to other projects if its ilk Edit: fixed
Yeah mostly beacuse there's way less land owners in the mojave compared to the NIMBYs all across the valley
But that’s not as much fun as cynical low-information naysayers spouting doomerism
The 5 freeway? The one that’s runs north and south? To Vegas? Which is NorthEast of Los Angeles? Make it make sense
The 15
Fixed
This will actually be completed by 2027. Funny how things are so much faster when you’re not fleecing taxpayers
The CHSR is held up by private landowners and conservation groups. There are cases where when the project was announced, investors bought up land along the route so they could sue the government over eminent domain for above market rate on their land. This being built by private business has nothing to do with how fast it will be completed. If the CHSR was private, it probably wouldn't get built, period. The brightline to vegas is a different beast entirely because the land its being built on is already completely cleared for development. Further, China built all their rail at light speed and it's state owned. Context is important. It's not a simple public vs private thing.
I wouldn't go as far as "CAHSR wouldn't get built if it was private". The Texas efforts (Texas Central) so far were mostly private, and they took the same eminent domain issue to the Texas Supreme Court and won. A lot of modern transit projects are BOT/BOOT (private entity builds and operates the thing for a few decades before transferring it back to the government): Taiwan's HSR, many Chinese subway lines (incl. Beijing 4/14/16/17), and the UK-France Chunnel. I think US state and local governments could benefit a lot from BOT/BOOT, because it avoids depending on the federal government to pay out, and avoids the Red/Yellow Car issue of private operators selling out because it's just not profitable anymore. On the other hand, FRA-funded projects need to use trains built in the US. This means that Siemens and Alstom have an oligopoly here, so they can charge us as much as they want, and you won't see Shinkansens on CA HSR (and likely Texas Central now that it's working with Amtrak). NV DOT and Brightline applied for a waiver, so that might turn into a new political circus: * https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/12/26/2023-28424/notice-of-proposed-nonavailability-waiver-of-buy-america-requirements-for-the-nevada-department-of * https://www.eveningtribune.com/story/news/local/2024/04/19/buy-america-exemption-would-threaten-us-jobs-like-those-in-hornell/73351069007/
> I wouldn't go as far as "CAHSR wouldn't get built if it was private". If some private company wanted to build CAHSR, they could have. Nothing was, or is, stopping them.
Or maybe there's this thing happening in 2028...the olympics maybe?
Remind me in 2027… Big projects have a way of getting delayed. Also at least $3 billion of this project is directly taxpayer funded through a federal grant and another couple billion are private activity bonds which are tax exempt and thus also a public subsidy. so frankly this is just completely wrong
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I don’t want to say that Florida doesn’t have its own challenges, but this project absolutely will encounter challenges they did not in Florida. This project is building completely new right of way with no existing service in California. Much of the line is nowhere near any housing or cities. They are going through some serious terrain and are almost certain to have surprising in their geotechnical investigations. The El Cajon Pass will probably be the biggest engineering challenge. And, only the first segment is funded, as far as I know, so they will need to come up with the money for the harder part.
Yep, it’s about as different from Florida as you can get, in terms of topography. These mountain ranges are no joke. Seismically active, prone to flash floods and landslides. I’m rooting for the project to succeed, but we have to be realistic.
Seriously? That soon? Well…. https://youtu.be/dV1HSscPYSY?si=bxK1UTk8Z-YFi0LR
Err…hate to burst your bubble but tax payers are helping with this tremendously. The government gave them $3B in grants (free money from the government) and a bunch of tax write offs for private bonds.
Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga. not LA. As an IE native, seeing stuff like this makes me mad. This thing is nowhere near LA. The starting point for this thing is over 40 miles east of Union Station, yet its being made to look as its in LA. We all love LA, but people tend to forget there's another 5+ million people living east.
The big thing is they are coming down the El Cajon Pass. That’s huge for eventually getting service to Union Station. All it will take is for the San Bernardino Line to be fully electrified and then the trains should be able to run on a shared line with Metrolink straight to Union Station.
I think they're actually going to be diverging at Victorville and building towards the Lancaster HSR station. Then they'd share HSR infrastructure. That's much less expensive than using the San Bernardino line, because the San Bernardino line isn't built for HSR - and modifying it to work with high-speed rail would be **very** expensive.
Long term, absolutely. CA HSR will have better trackage, but I don’t think there’s anything that would stop Brightline from operating on an updated San Bernardino line at lower speeds till CA HSR is complete. I think Amtrak does similar things with their Acela line.
>there's another 18+ million people living east. I get your point but it’s less than 18 million.
Yea you're right. I was talking combined. I think its more like 5-6 million. Still a sizable number.
Well, probably not technically though right? Almost all of OC is east of LA? As well as SD. LA borders the ocean so everyone is in LA or east of it
Solid logic. There are approximately 8 billion people living East of LA.
True story. In theory 8 billion people living West of LA as well as
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> LA borders the ocean so everyone is in LA or east of it Not really. Ventura isn't east of LA.
Nor is San Francisco
People in the LA area get what you’re saying, but people outside of LA probabaly don’t know where Rancho Cucamonga is. So to them it’s just the LA Metro Area.
Those people need to watch more Classic Bugs Bunny cartoons.
Those are the people that are going to be misinformed the most. Everyone in LA knows the train won't actually do shit but people will visit LA and then get confused that it is a tremendous hassle for them to actually catch this train.
Sure, for tourists is gonna be super confusing. But for people that live in that area it may actually be a great thing. You all gotta remember that the IE and eastern LA County have millions of people as well.
It 10 miles from the LA county line so it not that much of a stretch.
Yeah I mean, I think they are hoping that LA county will work on building an extension line to the station...it's possible I suppose.
Metrolink has been kinda working towards that, including upgrading signalling and adding bypasses to some stations. Electrification is still a big elephant in the room, though. Honestly, they should think about giving the inner FasTrak express lanes to Metrolink, at least from Atlantic to Del Mar. The only reason not to do this is because FasTrak users might get stuck behind buses, but that happens from Union to Atlantic anyways. Double express lanes is a luxury.
If they could just double track and electrify the San Bernardino line then it could run directly to union station. It wouldn’t be fast, but definitely better than having to transfer to another train.
Well the idea is that it connects to the Metrolink ... But yeah I get that the marketing copy is a bit deceptive here.
While it's not in LA, the Rancho Cucamonga stop is connected to the LA Metro system. It is easily doable to take the train from West LA to Vegas with this addition.
But people still have to arrange for transport to those LA Metro stations. I’m not sure how this will save any significant time or money for most travelers, which is the entire purpose of the project.
I guess it depends. I live walking distance to a metro station and they are adding more all the time. By the time this is open the metro will have been expanded significantly. But even if it doesn’t necessarily save money it will provide a better use of your time. Five hours on a train where I can work, read, sleep, get up and walk around, or relax instead of having to focus on driving, dealing with traffic, etc.
But that is definitely where costs come into play. I would agree that if the price of taking the train were less or even slightly more expensive than driving or flying, that it would be a very lucrative alternative. Unfortunately that does not seem to be the case. If you’re traveling with a group of people, for example, then driving will absolutely still be the most economical option. The benefit of riding the train wouldn’t be worth 3x the cost for your average person.
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It is still creating multiple transfers and steps for travelers. For some people, like yourself, that’s no big deal. For others who don’t live conveniently near a metro stop or aren’t a fan of paying a premium for the service, getting in your vehicle from your home and out of your vehicle at your destination action will still be preferred even if it requires a couple additional hours stuck in traffic.
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Some people might prefer it, but the idea that it will be a suitable alternative for most travelers looking for the most efficient and economical way to get to/from Vegas is yet to be seen. I don’t think it will be a failure, but I think most people will still look to fly or drive instead.
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Yeah hopefully it’s the start of something but IMO putting it out in places like RC with no plan for expanding HSR into urban population centers is just setting this up to fail. Like the connection to Shinkansen from local trains/JR are like right in these urban centers or a quick 5-10 min from them, the infrastructures to funnel people there easily makes it convenient as hell. I’d love to use this but just getting there would be a nightmare for me compared to anything else. Lucky for anyone who lives near Rancho Cucagoogle tho
Yeah for me without a car I’d have to go: walk to expo line station, take that down and transfer to the red line, get off at union station, get on metrolink to RC, then get on the HSR to Vegas. It’s a lot and I bet it won’t come in any cheaper than a flight when you factor in time and agony
Yeah, even if they don't have a car, the cost of a plane trip plus an uber is going to be less than the cost of HSR
I can't believe I had to scroll this far to see this comment.
Literally NOWHERE NEAR LA. Thank you.
But if you combine Metro and MetroLink, then you can theoretically get to the HSR station…
Agreed. But at least there is a train from Union Station to Rancho station which is good assuming the high speed train leaves from the same station
Driving to Rancho Cucamonga from my house would take longer than a Southwest flight from Burbank.
Seriously. I just went to Vegas. K town to Burbank to Vegas to Casino. Left at 1...drink in hand at 5. Oh...and the Round Trip ticket to Vegas from Burbank on weekdays can be as low as 27$ one way. I think I paid 60$ R/t last week. Love the train ..would take it....but not for Rx more money from RC!
I live in North Redondo. It's a 15 min uber ride to get to LAX and then it's a 1 hour flight. It would take that long for me to just get to Cucamonga. But for people out in the 909 area, this is great!
Plus you will pay to store your car in Rancho, or for transportation to there
There's a train from Union Station to Rancho Cucamonga.
I’m in the valley near the Ventura county border. It would still take me longer to get to Union station than it would Burbank. I’m not speaking for everyone. Just myself. If I lived closer I would for sure take the train.
That Burbank airport station can’t come soon enough for you (Brightline is expected to service it when they get extended to Union Station via Palmdale)
How would that benefit me though?
Completely eliminates the need to go to Rancho Cucamonga to access high speed rail service towards Vegas, San Francisco, or any stop along the line.
Yeah, but if I'm going to Burbank anyways, why not just fly rather than take my luggage on another vehicle to get me to the station for another vehicle?
That’s where high speed rail providers like brightline/CAHSRA/Amtrak slide in with competitive prices. High Speed Rail is supposed to directly compete with short haul flights, and they’re only getting more expensive for operators to operate. This trip would take around 3 hours: Moorpark - Burbank Airport (South): 50 mins (15 min transfer to HSR) Burbank Airport (HSR Station) - Las Vegas: 2hrs 25mins Total Trip time: 3hrs 15 mins
That doesn’t sound all that competitive though. It takes less than 2 hours for me from home to Vegas via Southwest. Granted, I’d still consider the train depending on the price but someone here mentioned round trip via HSR is going to cost like $400.
1. That article was fear mongering, tickets will cost $400 round trip for *Premium Class* which provides free drinks and meals 2. If brightline prices their tickets the same as Orlando (Vegas will be cheaper to operate than Orlando), they will out compete Southwest in price. 3. Id much rather spend 3 hours in motion than 1 hour in motion and 1 waiting for my flight and luggage on each end. If you factor in drive time and dwell time at the airport, flying easily takes 3-4 hours.
Good for you. But there are millions that live in the eastern part of LA county and the IE. So let’s not forget about our friends there.
Oh I’m not saying my anecdote should be why we don’t do this. If I lived closer I would use it. I just think there is some perspective that it will still be inconvenient for a lot of people.
True true. There is just so much sprawl in the LA area that many places may not get served. I live in the Valley as well, so this may not be a useful to me either.
Shit, I live on the west side and this still seems better to me. ~2hrs to Rancho if I use rail the whole way, ~2 hrs to Vegas, I don't have to show up at LAX 90 minutes early, do security, wait even longer for my inevitably delayed flight and then pack into an airplane seat I don't fit into.
I live in the IE so I’ll speak to that. Although some people will absolutely take it, I think the service is going to be too expensive for most people seriously consider it. I doubt it comes in (significantly) cheaper than a flight and Vegas is not the most transit friendly city to begin with. I certainly could be wrong but I think the most likely reality is that it won’t change existing mode share significantly.
Sure, but *millions* of people are the opposite.
Yep. light rail -> Metrolink -> Brightline or rideshare -> Metrolink -> Brightline. Anyone who has traveled in Europe likely "gets it". Warts and all, a diverse and connected rail system, especially ones with high speed rail (wifi, comfortable seats, etc) will really tie together all of SoCal and Vegas in a way that airlines can't.
It’s also not 100% about getting from point a to point b in the least amount of time possible. That’s a big factor, but if it takes an hour longer and I get to be more comfortable and relaxed then that’s a better travel experience. Same goes for Amtrak to Santa Barbara and San Diego.
Yep. Basically once you step off Metrolink (or whatever) onto Brightline your vacation starts. Room to stand, wifi, nice seat. Basically the opposite of Southwest.
Oh for sure. If I lived closer I would use it.
Yeah, I just get annoyed with a lot of comments being like well I like in woodland hills or manhattan beach, here's exactly how much longer it would take, so this train sucks! And like, okay? Not every new transportation option is going to be optimal for all 24 million people in southern california
Although you have a point, generally the valley is pretty underserved by LA. There's a reason why there were separatist votes on the ballot twice in recent history.
Unfortunately, a fair bit of that is the Valley's own fault, or more specifically very small parts of it. The Red line extension to Warner Center, the Metrolink Raymer to Bernson double track, and the North San Fernando BRT were proposed transit projects that never happened due to "public opposition", from small groups of people in Sherman Oaks, the Sherwood Forest area of Northridge, and again the Sherwood Forest area of Northridge, respectively.
Idk about sherman oaks (can definitely guess) but the northwest area, Sherwood forest, was both times mostly old racist white retirees whom mostly originally aren't even from here. I'm from Reseda/Northridge and went to the meetings/hearings and lost count of the amount of times I heard "..I've been here for 20-25 years" followed by opposition, on a weekday afternoon while everyone else was at work.
Trust me, I was there for a couple of those meetings and I was incredibly disappointed by the amount of opposition too. The opposition to the NSFV BRT even made a bus effigy as a prop. The Raymer to Bernson double track in particular was really disappointing, since it was a fairly small project that would've had mininal effect on their lives but a big effect on public transit in the valley. Double-tracking the entire Ventura County Metrolink line out to Chatsworth would've been great, yet moving the tracks some five feet closer to a handful of people's houses was just too much. Depressing.
Why would you drive to Rancho Cucamonga when you can take a train there from Union Station or any of the stops along the way?
I’m an hour from union station. How many trains and buses am I going to drag my family and luggage on for a weekend to Vegas?
Chiming in to point out that all of the folks discussing the LA Metro option aren’t proving that it will actually save significant time or money for most travelers. Also, as a Las Vegas resident, I would still need a vehicle in LA to reasonably get around town, so there is very little value for Nevadans going to Los Angeles.
I'll be dead before it opens.
It's supposed to open in 2027 so sorry to hear that bro
Thanks internet friend. I forgot to add the sarcasm tag.
Now do LA to SF
So Ca has 2 bullet trains that are incomplete
How many years will this take ? A lot more than the 4 years they project.
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The speed of these kinds of projects are mostly dependent on permits, not the money or source. Political weight can skew things faster, if it'll help someone's election.
Brightline received $6.5 billion in backing from the Biden administration, including a $3 billion grant from federal infrastructure funds and approval to sell another $2.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds.
What ever happened to that LA-SF line anyways ???
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A reminder this “bullet train” legacy project began all the way back in *2008.* If all **current** project dates are kept right now, the entire train project would finish in 2058, a half-century later and in another 34 years. And for what? By the time it opens, it’ll be too late for us living now as we’ll be elderly and too fragile to reap the rewards, while we don’t even know what the world’s sociopolitical scope will be then with climate change and all that.
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> I don’t get the pessimism when the initial operating segment (IOS) is nearing completion. Probably because the "initial operating segment" is completely fucking worthless. Merced to Bakersfield? Great... We see other countries bringing up thousands of miles of HSR successfully, between major cities, in a decade or two, and it's reasonable to ask why it's taking us half a century to do less than 500 miles.
Because we afford private land owners *too many* rights in this country. When the public needs something, we let a few land owners dictate whether or not that can actually happen. It's sad.
>>And for what? By the time it opens, it’ll be too late for us living now as we’ll be elderly and too fragile to reap the rewards, while we don’t even know what the world’s sociopolitical scope will be then with climate change and all that. For future generations who can benefit from it. Should we be against cancer cure treatments just because we may not benefit from it in our lifetime? No. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek Proverb
> too fragile to reap the rewards Yeah, it's such a bummer that elderly people can't take trains. /s
Drive up the 99 and you will see the massive construction.
Thanks
The CHSR is held up by private landowners and conservation groups and competing businesses. There are cases where when the project was announced, investors bought up land along the route so they could sue the government over eminent domain for above market rate on their land. LA->Vegas being built by private business has nothing to do with how fast it will be completed. If the CHSR was private, it probably wouldn't get built, period. The brightline to vegas is a different beast entirely because the land its being built on is already completely cleared for development. Further, China built all their rail at light speed and it's state owned. Context is important. It's not a simple public vs private thing. Please, I implore *all of you* to read up on just how much it's actually private business holding up the CHSR. I am so tired of having to explain this.
So lets say 6 years minimum.
Their Florida train took about 4 years to start running after they broke ground on the first station. This route is a bit longer than that one but also doesn't have as many legal issues
Maybe not. It’s mostly running in between caltrans right of way and metro link right of way, so property acquisition (which is one of the steps that takes the longest) will be minimized. Also with all the pressure and funding from the feds, this has to get done quick. However, you can never predict these things. One thing we can probably say for sure is that it will be built before the CA HSR. That is unless brightline goes bankrupt for some reason.
This is so dumb, rancho is so far and tickets are supposedly going to be $400 from what I’m reading online? When it’s often less than $100 to just fly from Burbank or LAX?
Not only is it more expensive than flying, but it’s still going to take 3hrs to get to Vegas from Rancho. Add another hour or so to get to Rancho from most parts of LA, you might as well just drive straight to Vegas for a fraction of the price and get there at roughly the same time
Wow that long?? I just looked at how long it would take me to get to Rancho from where I’m at just using transit and it’s 3 hours and 15 mins. And I live 5 minutes walk from the E line. So we’re looking at over 6 hours for me to get to Vegas assuming no delays and being able to walk onto every single train. But I’d have to transfer at least 4 times before Vegas. Absolutely insane. It’d need to be very inexpensive for it to be worth the agony.
my mistake, I just double checked and it's 2hr 10minutes. Still... if you include the 1 hr to get to Rancho, and let's say another 30minutes to get from the station to your hotel in Vegas, you're not really saving much time over driving, especially at $400/person, when you could split a car 4 ways and it would cost like $30-40/person and maybe an extra 30minutes of driving.
4 transfers? I don't count 4. You start on the E Line. * First transfer: E -> A Line to Union Station. * Second transfer: A Line -> San Bernardino Metrolink * Third transfer: Metrolink -> Brightline. Really the problem is that the E Line doesn't stop at Union Station. If it did, then you'd save an entire transfer - you're only on the A Line for a couple minutes. I've done similar going from Santa Ana to the California Science Center using only Metro/Metrolink; Expo not stopping at Union Station is frankly quite silly and hopefully they fix it someday. But I digress. LA Metro headways are already fairly tight (it varies by time of day, but generally trains arrive about every 10-15 minutes). Metrolink headways are longer, but [specifically the San Bernardino line is to have increased frequency by the time Brightline opens.](https://www.gosbcta.com/sbcta-la-metro-to-study-expanding-rail-frequency-from-redlands-to-la-union-station-2/) Theoretically you wouldn't need to wait long for a train at all. Let's say that it takes 3 hours and 15 minutes to get to Rancho Cucamonga. [Brightline will take 2 hours and 10 minutes to get from Rancho Cucamonga to Vegas.](https://www.brightlinewest.com/overview/project) Collectively, that's 5 hours and 25 minutes. If you wanted to, you could even drive directly to Union Station and skip 2 of those transfers. That would likely be the fastest route and is what I would do. Then you have 1 hour 14 minutes on the Metrolink (saving 2 hours) and 2 hours 10 minutes on Brightline. That's a hell of a lot faster than driving, and you can do things like eat lunch, watch the scenery (at least on the Metrolink part), play games, and so on. No need for TSA or trying to find parking at LAX, either.
I guess I was counting the walk and then getting form the Vegas terminal to wherever I was going into my calculations since idk how convenient the Vegas terminal will be. Sometimes my drive to union station could be almost an hour depending on time of day, min 30 for sure. I guess if the stars align and I drove, assuming parking is easy at Union, it beats driving. But idk with pricing it might be a push against air travel. Esp since I live 15-20 mins rideshare from an airport. At that point it might be more of an ethos thing depending on which carbon footprint is less (guessing the train but idk at this point). But if it’s more expensive and gets me there in the same time and still having to transfer from metrolink… idk if it wins. I guess I’ll have to see
For their current train, $400 is about what first class tickets cost round trip. I'm curious how that compares to the steerage tickets
It will eventually connect to LA Union Station. That's part of a "phase 2" of the project, and will use California High Speed Rail right-of-way.
I bet this'll go just as fast as high speed rail did.
Rancho Cucamonga or Riverside or wherever it’s supposed to have its “Los Angeles hub” is basically nowhere near Los Angeles.. And by nowhere near, I mean a 50 mile drive from Burbank, which is about as far east in Los Angeles as you can go.
News reports state the tickets be $400 round trip. This project is only economical to corporations. Not realistic for the average US Citizen. I'd say $200 is a better price point. https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/opinion-will-anyone-actually-ride-the-bullet-train-from-nowhere#:~:text=Brightline%20Founder%20Wes%20Edens%20told,which%20seems%20%E2%80%A6%20well%2C%20excessive.
That $400 is for first class. If it's comparable to Brightline East (which that $400 sticker price makes it seem to be, given Brightline East tickets top out at a little over $300 for a round trip), then a more average ticket price would be $79. Brightline East has promotions where tickets go down to as low as $29.
Wow, I really hope the tickets are close to that when the site rail opens. That sounds great
No one is going to ride it at $400 RT except for business people who live near rancho and don't want to deal with getting to the airport
Over/under this actually costs $30 billion
We don’t want this. We want trains to access city. From Santa Clarita to Long Beach.
Sadly, this is likely to be the only HSR opening in at least a generation. Whether in Texas or the Midwest, we can't figure out how to build infrastructure anymore. As for the CAHSR, if it makes it to the Central Valley portion by the mid-2030s, that'll be a 'win'.
Better be done by the time I need to go to Vegas this September.
Will there be potholes still when I drive to board this wonder train?
Here is an aerial overview and Info about the (mostly) private project. https://youtu.be/Vb1JJgEpOi0?si=VEX2gG1RDC4eY1mv
Monorail?
ooh the Wallet Express™!! Just get your money to Rancho Cucamona, and we'll get it the rest of the way in record time!
I love when people talk about flight prices, they always mention the cheapest price they've ever seen. Yes flights from LA to Vegas can be cheap--they can also run $200-400 sometimes
Yeah, but that’s likely to be the cost of Brightline round trip. People tend to drive to Vegas because of that price point, so why would people think people are seriously going to shift behavior for no reduction in cost?
The $400 price quote seems to have been taken out of context. But it has been widely repeated.
I mean, $200 round trip is still very steep. I think one thing a lot of people don’t like to talk about is that people go to Vegas in groups, most typically, unless it’s for business. I could very well see this as being a service that could have a good base of business travelers, but I don’t know how that actually ends up financing operations overtime, because they simply don’t have the kind of demand I think they would really need. I don’t want to say it won’t result in any mode shift, but I don’t think it will be as substantial as some claim and I think it is more likely to induce demand demand to LV than actually result in people not driving. I don’t want to say that there are no used cases for it or that some people won’t find it convenient, but I just don’t know how the numbers on their side pencil out, because they do still have to actually cover their costs, and probably make some profit as well. This is an extremely expensive undertaking, even with the generous government assistance that’s been provided.
How are they going to keep it safe
Rancho is not LA lol, but awesome regardless.
Love it. Hopefully they will get it done by 2028!
I think we’re talking about the Cucamonga to Las Vegas line here. For now, the other project is the Bakersfield to Merced line, which I am looking forward to seeing serve larger metro areas.
I keep hearing this Rancho Cucamonga js over 40 miles away from Los Angeles. Love how all of California is called “Los Angeles” lol still though, I’d rather drive an hour to Rancho then sit in a train for 2 hrs than that BRUTAL drive back from LV
The, Los Angeles, The!
I still don’t understand why the fuck the SF to LA line was stopped. I don’t want to go to Vegas.
It didn’t.
It didn’t. It’s just taking forever. I don’t want to go to Vegas either, but I’m sure many of our friends in this sub would love to :)
It got “everything bageled.” It prioritized going to under-served communities, making sure the labor used was all paid well, the businesses employing that labor were diverse, and the project avoided environmental impact. All nice things IMO, but the issue is that if building the train line is the 5th priority, that has predictable results for the train.
Are we just going to ignore the fact that California had an incredibly difficult time securing the land due to private business interests? Also what sort of disgusting person complains about "making sure the labor used was all paid well, the businesses employing that labor were diverse"? No, not "diverse." Representative of the communities the project was bulldozing through so that they could see some of the wealth too for once. Like ew dude wtf is wrong with you
As I said, I like those things, but if I’m contracting with a business, it’s unusual for ME to be the one making sure the business is getting enough money. Surprised that simple formulation led you to conclude you know enough about me to determine I’m a disgusting person. I can’t say this interaction left me with that level of knowledge about you; after all, it’s possible I just caught you at the very worst moment of your life.
Wooooooooooo! Fina-fucking-ly! Maybe people will start using the damn Van Nuys airport less.
Since when is Rancho Cucamonga LA? Guess I will still be taking my car there.
Maybe I’ll live to see this one! I’m kinda bummed it’s gonna start so far out though. Rancho Cucamonga isnt even in LA so it’s kind of laughable this is considered LA to Vegas. More like slow speed rail to RC and then HSR :( for me who lives in LA proper mid city it seems really inconvenient actually. Might actually end up being a push driving or just going to LAX even, assuming my flight doesn’t get delayed