Panning over the beautiful rooftop park of the Salesforce Transit Center to reveal its’ gorgeous interior, the narrator asks you to imagine traveling at over 200 miles per hour from San Francisco to Los Angeles for a trip that takes less than three hours.
In 2008, California voted for a $9 billion bond authorization on an estimated $33 billion project that would build the nation’s first high-speed railway system, and fifteen years later, the project is now estimated at $128 billion.
For over half a century, high-speed rail has quickly and safely transported billions of people to their destinations. In 1964, Japan began transporting passengers on its high-speed trains. There has been press about bringing high-speed rail to California since the 1980s as Europe was already building its own high-speed rail network. The California High-Speed Rail Authority was established in 1994 with its first bond authorization in 2008.
The least expensive section of the high-speed rail is considered to be from Merced southward to Bakersfield. With 119 miles of railway already under construction in the valley, the goal is to have segments ready to go between 2030 to 2033, connecting 3 of the fastest-growing cities in California. With so much progress already made, and so much work left to be done, it will be interesting to see how this vast and vital infrastructure project continues.
From Sacramento down to Bakersfield, there are about 4 million people. It it were its’ own state, it would be bigger than half the states in the United States.
Visit the official California High-Speed Rail Authority website.
