There may be hope yet for a highly touted and long-delayed high-speed rail line connecting Las Vegas and Southern California.
News reports have it that the operator of the first such privately funded high-speed network in the United States, Miami-based Brightline Trains, has agreed to purchase the project’s developer, Xpress West, for an undisclosed sum.
XpressWest, the brainchild of famed Las Vegas Strip builder Tony Marnell, has secured most of the state and federal approvals needed to develop a 185-mile route for electric trains to travel at speeds up to 150 miles an hour between Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif., on the outskirts of the Los Angeles metropolitan area and its population of the 17 million-plus. Construction of the line, which would run parallel to Interstate 15, was supposed to start in 2016, but at an estimated cost of $8 billion, the venture has languished for lack of sufficient funding.
Enter Brightline, whose Miami metro network opened earlier this year with plans to expand it 230 miles to Orlando. The company says it can build the desert line for half that and have it open by 2022.
“Our experience in Florida is proving that private-sector investment has a meaningful role to play in developing transportation infrastructure,” said Wes Edens, co-founder and co-CEO of Fortress Investment Group, which manages funds that own Brightline.
“We’re confident that Brightline will fulfill our mission and promise to the region,” Marnell said. “We’ve been impressed with what Brightline has accomplished in Florida and are excited to be part of the team that is working to deliver privately funded high-speed rail to improve mobility in America.”
Others are skeptical. California Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed 200 mph bullet train linking Los Angeles and San Francisco has seen its estimated costs soar beyond $60 billion. While a Brown University study commissioned by Brightline’s Florida opponents says the company will be unable to service the debt on its $3.5 billion Miami-Orlando network.
Brightline, however, says the systems can be self-sustaining, noting that travelers make more than 50 million trips a year by car and plane between Southern California and Las Vegas. The company also points to studies like the one released last year by a Southern California regional transportation authority that projected the Las Vegas line would eventually generate more than $1 billion a year by motorists diverting from the city’s often crowded I-15 link to Los Angeles.
Plans also call for connectivity with California Metrolink and California High-Speed Rail.
