Why don't we have a bullet train to Los Angeles?
The idea of building a high-speed train between Southern California and Las Vegas has floated around various government agencies, developers, and construction companies since 1975. In 2005, $45 million was earmarked in that year's national transportation bill to go towards a possible Las Vegas to Anaheim, Calif., bullet train utilizing magnetically levitated technology capable of reaching 300mph — an amount well under the estimated total cost of $10 billion. Some California government officials have argued that the money would better be spent on building trains between cities within California rather than sending residents to spend money in Nevada.
China opened the first high-speed maglev train to be used for transportation in January of 2004. While the technology has been in development for nearly a century, maglev trains operating at high speeds (above 40 mph) have only recently been built for commercial transit.
In March 2007, a Las Vegas based company proposed a high-speed train route from Las Vegas to Victorville operating at speeds around 125 mph at a total estimated cost of $3 billion. Both plans are undergoing review and waiting for available funding opportunities.
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— Web content editor Andy Samuelson, multimedia technician Billy Steffens, and intern Rob Ponte compiled this report.