California’s long-delayed high-speed rail project has a new destination: Las Vegas.
The original plan, approved by voters in 2008, aimed to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles. But after delays and massive cost overruns, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced that the “bullet” train would no longer connect those two cities. Instead, Democrats claimed that they would build the rail between rural towns in the Central Valley, where there is no consumer demand.
Then-President Donald Trump canceled $1 billion in federal spending on the project, which had been intended for the original plan, over Newsom’s objections. President Joe Biden restored the funding.
But in the meantime, a new plan, spearheaded by private industry, was launched to connect Southern California to Las Vegas — a more profitable idea, given that a fast ride to Vegas might not just be a form of transportation but also part of Sin City’s entertainment.
The Biden-Harris administration added $6 billion in federal spending. Now, Newsom is hitching California’s caboose to that idea, hoping to save what is left of the high-speed rail project.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Monday:
California leaders are ready to lay high-speed rail tracks through the Central Valley, and on Monday they signaled where the tracks are headed: south toward Palmdale, to make connections into Las Vegas.
…
The new map would plug California high-speed rail into a regional network with two other bullet train lines — the High Desert Corridor in Los Angeles, and the privately owned Brightline West route from Vegas to Rancho Cucamonga.
Tensions only heightened on Monday when Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican from Rocklin, introduced legislation to torpedo federal funding for what he called a “failed” high-speed rail project.
Newsom, after canceling the original route, has championed high-speed rail as a form of job creation and invesment in the state. His predecessor, Gov. Jerry Brown (D), saw high-speed rail as a way to combat climate change.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days, available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency, now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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