California Groundbreaking Marks the True Beginning of High-Speed Rail in America

On Tuesday, California’s bullet train, which will truncate commutes across the state and forever change how people get around, breaks ground in the Central Valley hub of Fresno. The process up to this point has been anything but high-speed, and supporters hope the ceremonial groundbreaking will usher in a new era that eventually brings the full rail system into use by 2028.  A first-of-its-kind project in the U.S., it may also be a major step on the path towards other high-speed rails in places like Texas and the northeast corridor.

The first phase of California’s high-speed rail system will be a 29-mile stretch from Fresno slightly north to the town of Madera.  From there the project will link up with urban centers like Los Angeles and San Francisco, eventually allowing commuters to travel between those two cities at 220 mph and cutting the trip from nearly six hours to less than three. The system will eventually extend to Sacramento and San Diego, totaling 800 miles with up to 24 stations.

The train’s speed isn’t the only big number associated with the project.  The entire project is slated to cost $68 billion, but could easily run right through that estimate.  As far as commuters, California has around 32 million registered vehicles traveling more than 330 billion miles a year.  High-speed rail is necessary to meet the future demands of these residents and the projected 12 million new Californians coming to the state, according to Brian P. Kelly, California’s secretary of transportation, and Mary D. Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board (CARB).  The state’s population is expected to hit 50 million by 2030.

Last year, Kelly and Nichols wrote an editorial for the Los Angeles Times stating that the “alternative to high-speed rail is an estimated investment of more than $150 billion to build 4,300 new lanes of highway, more freeways and hundreds of new airport gates and runways.”
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The benefits of high-speed rail are apparent globally, and many emerging economies have plans of for their own systems.  Mexico is considering a network.  Russia wants to build a line between Moscow and Beijing, thus shortening the legendary Trans-Siberian commute from seven days to two.  China is laying high-speed track at breakneck speeds — last month the country launched 32 new routes in one day.  In the U.S., Texas’ plans for a bullet train network would connect Houston and Dallas in 90 minutes and could come online as soon as 2021.

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