Federal agency (within U.S. Department of Transportation)
Appears in 2 stories
Grant administrator and primary federal regulator for the project
Japan opened its first bullet train in 1964. Sixty years later, the United States has yet to operate a single line that meets the international threshold for high-speed rail. On April 22, 2024, Brightline West broke ground in Las Vegas on a 218-mile route designed to change that, with electric trains running up to 200 miles per hour between the Strip and the Los Angeles suburbs.
Updated 2 hours ago
Former primary federal funder; terminated all active grants to the project in 2025
California voters approved a bullet train in 2008 with a $33 billion price tag and a promise to whisk passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles by 2020. Eighteen years later, no train has run, the price tag for the full San Francisco–Anaheim line has climbed to roughly $231 billion, and the first segment — Merced to Bakersfield in the Central Valley — is not expected to carry passengers before 2033. On February 28, 2026, the California High-Speed Rail Authority released its Draft 2026 Business Plan, the agency's first full strategic update since the Trump administration pulled $4 billion in federal grants and California abandoned its court fight to get them back.
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