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Brightline's high-speed LA-to-Las Vegas rail project scores $3 billion in federal funding
(www.statesman.com)
Thank Fook no more hyperloop projects were funded.
this post was submitted on 10 Dec 2023
216 points (98.2% liked)
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First of all, woot, trains.
But this is a smaller section of high speed rail. One Vegas wanted and offered to pay for if memory serves. For a $4.2B project, $3.25B in tax exempt bonds were already authorized. Now another $3B? Looot of money flowing towards this project to get people to casinos. Hope accounting is up to par.
California does have another high speed rail that republicans have fought every step of the way. There is progress, but slow. Could probably toss some of that over budget excess our way to help out. Just say'n.
The budget excess earmarked for someone’s not-so-subtle rainy day fund?
Love giving public money to private infrastructure.
Mixed ownership of rail isn't uncommon in the world, but yeah its a bit shit.
As a counter point, Brightline is basically the only private company to stand up a successful US commuter rail line in decades, so it makes sense to give them a boost here.
Somebody needs to build that fucking train, and they built one like it in rail hostile florida. That one is diesel because "reasons" but this one will be a sane electric.
There was a plan for actual HSR in Florida using the same ROW as Brightline. It was torpedoed by former governor and current senator Rick Scott. They sent money back to the Obama administration both because they didn't want the Democrats to get a win and also because of their privatization/kickback fetish.
Same exact thing happened in Ohio in 2010, Kasich sent the money back.
Also in Wisconsin
And destroying the desert landscape in the process. Let's add hundreds of miles of high speed rail on top of I-15, the miles of freight rail, old mines, new lithium mining, all the military bases, and all the solar and wind farms to the delicate biosphere that hasn't changed in a million years. Awesome.
Anyway, this country needs proper intercity and urban rail like yesterday.