Brightline’s Vegas-to-LA rail line project sees more progress

A pair of labor agreements approved this week move a planned Southern California high-speed rail link between the Brightline West and California High-Speed Rail projects closer to reality.

The High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency approved a community workforce agreement and a memorandum of understanding that pledged to use union labor during the constitution, operation and maintenance of the Southern California High Desert Corridor bullet train project.

The 54-mile high-speed rail line would serve as a connector between the planned Brightline West Victor Valley Station and the California High-Speed Rail in Palmdale, California. The California High-Speed Rail project will eventually connect Sacramento, California, to the north and San Diego to the south.

The U.S. High-Speed Rail Coalition worked with the High Desert Corridor JPA on the agreements, which included more than a dozen unions.

“We were delighted to help facilitate these two landmark labor agreements, which will create thousands more good, union jobs in the growing high-speed rail industry,” Ezra Silk, political director of the U.S. High Speed Rail Coalition, said in a statement.

Brightline West’s planned $12 billion, 218-mile high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga, California, with a connection into Los Angeles via the Metrolink commuter rail service, is planned to be completed by the 2028 Olympic Games.

A groundbreaking ceremony was held in April on the site of the planned Brightline Las Vegas station on Las Vegas Boulevard near Blue Diamond Road.

Over the past several months, crews have been conducting geotechnical work along the planned route that will run along Interstate 15. This week, work occurred only on the California side of I-15, between Stoddard Wells and Lenwood roads, which wraps up at 4 p.m. Friday.

Brightline and the Nevada Department of Transportation are working with the Federal Railroad Administration on a pair of grant recipient agreements, related to the $3 billion awarded to the project last year, as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Once that process is completed, “we’ll begin on the actual construction later on this year,” NDOT director Tracy Larkin-Thomason said last month during the department’s board of director’s meeting.

Brightline West didn’t respond Thursday to a request for comment on when construction could begin.

The project also was approved for a total of $3.5 billion in private activity bonding authority from the U.S. Department of Transportation. Brightline plans to utilize debt and private capital to pay the remaining costs of the $12 billion rail project.

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.