Nov. 14, 2024
In roughly four years, trains traveling 218 miles at speeds up to 200 mph through the desert from Las Vegas will arrive in the Los Angeles suburb of Rancho Cucamonga — a seemingly unlikely destination for the first truly high-speed rail line in North America. But a private railroad called Brightline, which also runs somewhat slower trains between Orlando and Miami in Florida, announced in 2020 that Rancho Cucamonga would be one of its first destinations.
"There is no high-speed rail in the United States for us to really model any of this after," says Matthew Burris, AICP, deputy city manager of the community of 167,000 located in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. "On the one hand, we think that transportation patterns could grow and be more diverse. We're going to have people coming from much farther distances. But we know a big part of Brightline's strategy is relying on high-quality transit that already exists, so the people coming in maybe don't necessarily want to get in a car."
As unexpected as the selection might have been, it proved to fit in with many of the city's initiatives. Rancho Cucamonga's station is the second busiest on the Metrolink commuter rail system serving the Los Angeles region. Brightline's station will be attached to that commuter rail stop, giving people throughout the region access to the Vegas-bound trains. The local transit agency is also developing plans to connect the station to the nearby Ontario International Airport using autonomous, zero-emission vehicles through a four-mile tunnel. Residents will be able to link to the station with a new bus rapid transit line, bike paths, and, of course, stops for ride-hailing services.
High-speed rail, though, changes the dynamic of the area. Making it work means borrowing features of airports — like big parking garages and heightened security measures — along with attributes of a traditional rail station, such as easy access to downtown amenities and the potential for nearby development. It's a balancing act that an increasing number of cities are likely to be facing, as several high-speed rail projects get underway across the country.
From LV to LA in Half the Time
Driving the 218 miles from Las Vegas to Los Angeles takes about 4.5 hours in good traffic. With speeds up to 200 mph, Brightline West promises to drop riders in Rancho Cucamonga in suburban LA in just over 2 hours, with the Metrolink taking them the rest of the way. Source: Brightline.
The bright lights of Las Vegas meet the Brightline, which bills itself as the country's first "true" high-speed rail line. The all-electric route broke ground earlier this year. Rendering courtesy of Brightline.
California, for example, is building its own high-speed rail line that will start in the Central Valley and eventually connect to the Bay Area. Amtrak is exploring a high-speed connection between Dallas and Houston. And efforts to build high-speed rail in places like Arizona, North Carolina, and the Pacific Northwest are in the early stages of development but could shape the visions communities cast for themselves in the coming decades.
Those efforts will attract both attention and scrutiny, not only for the transportation options they deliver but also how they affect the communities where they're located. "If you're planning to bring high-speed rail to a community, this affects every single person in that community, so you need to do a huge amount of outreach and education and solicit input from a lot of different people," says Philip Mark Plotch, AICP, the principal researcher at the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington think tank. "If you have a small community, and you're putting 1,000 people an hour onto a train, that's going to affect where people choose to live, where people choose to work, and the way people get to and fro."
Done right, high-speed rail could spark an economic boom, Plotch says. But done poorly, it could exacerbate the problems many communities already face with sprawl and auto dependency.
"To me, sprawl is the antithesis of good planning," Plotch says. "You can build high-speed rail in a way that promotes a packed urban environment, or you can build it in a way that just exacerbates sprawl."
Station design shapes city growth
The physical form of high-speed rail makes it unique, even compared to other rail deployments. When speed is key, railroads want to keep stops to a minimum, so stations are few and far apart. Their platforms are longer, to service high-capacity trains. The tracks are different too. Once trains start getting past 100 mph, grade crossings where rails and roads overlap become impractical and even dangerous. So, high-speed rail systems need viaducts, underpasses, and tunnels to keep trains away from vehicles — and fences to prevent pedestrians from crossing. High-speed trains also need electricity, usually delivered through overhead wires.
The business justification for high-speed rail is also different. Railroads want to connect cities that are too far to drive but too close to fly. That's why Amtrak's Northeast Corridor, although not technically high-speed rail, is so popular: Nobody wants to drive on a jam-packed Interstate 95 from Washington to Philadelphia to New York and onto Boston, but flying such a short distance is a hassle too. But because high-speed rail is competing with flying, rail carriers can charge a premium price for the service and prioritize amenities like on-board Wi-Fi, comfy seats, and upscale food options. Often, those new railroads want their stations to cater to high-end customers too.
Similar needs, though, don't always produce similar solutions. Take California High-Speed Rail, the state-run project to eventually connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. It was the first high-speed rail project in the U.S. to launch, after voters there approved the initial funding for it in a 2008 ballot question. The focus of that effort now is to build a 171-mile segment between Merced and Bakersfield, which will include Central Valley stops in Madera, Fresno, and Kings County.
Full Speed Ahead
California's state-run high-speed rail project will connect the Bay Area to LA. The project's current focus is on the 171-mile segment starting in Merced and heading south to Bakersfield (left). Bus and other train lines (right) will continue south all the way to San Diego, tying the network together. Maps courtesy of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Construction wrapped in spring 2023 on a 3,700-foot viaduct that will allow high-speed trains to pass over State Route 88 and Cedar and North avenues in Fresno, California. To date, 48 structures have been finished for the state-run project, with an additional 34 underway. Video courtesy of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.
Margaret "Meg" Cederoth, AICP, the director of planning and sustainability at the California High-Speed Rail Authority, says each of those stations will be tailored to the visions that planners and officials in each of those cities laid out. "As a state, we have these 20- or 40-acre sites in the middle of these places, and the state can do a lot, but [the stations] need to sit within the nest of broader city planning," she says. "Planning dollars can be really scarce, so we recognize that we need to provide either consulting support, in-kind matches, or just direct funding of planning activities."
In the Central Valley, Fresno developed a station-area master plan that by right allows taller, denser, and more compact development in the area. The city also is looking at the infrastructure it needs to support more people living close to the station. The goal is to make downtown Fresno a regional destination offering conventions, a minor-league ballpark, and transit connections to Yosemite National Park.
The station and surrounding development also give the city a chance to address some long-standing problems with existing freight rail lines creating a barrier between Chinatown and downtown, Cederoth says. Fresno officials decided to keep the rail lines at ground level, an option that increases the costs of the project because it requires the state to build underpasses on nearby streets. But city leaders hope the passenger rail station will attract development to both sides of the tracks and help pedestrians get between neighborhoods on a new bridge that people can cross even if they aren't taking the train.
Bakersfield's station, on the other hand, is on the edge of downtown, which allows it to keep its historic city center intact while using the high-speed rail station as a new zone for development, Cederoth says. The city also chose to elevate the tracks into the station, so trains will enter the new structure on a 60-foot-high viaduct. "It gives you the opportunity for the station to be this new, iconic piece of architecture," she says. "It also means that you [can] just go underneath the train. It doesn't create a barrier." Planners like Cederoth want to avoid the destructive neighborhood impacts caused by infrastructure projects of the 20th century.
The planned street-level Fresno station will reconnect downtown and Chinatown with an elevated pedestrian crossing along Mariposa Street. The station is viewed as a potential catalyst for economic growth in the area. Renderings courtesy of Foster + Partners.
At the proposed Bakersfield station, the southern terminus of California High-Speed Rail's initial Central Valley segment, a linear park will be running beneath a new viaduct. The designs show the different ways communities hope to capitalize on the high-speed rail project.
The high-speed rail authority's current plan is for the Central Valley segment of the new line to open between 2030 and 2033. The route won't include either of the ultimate destinations in San Francisco or LA, but the agency is working to make sure transfers on both ends are smooth. Passengers will be able to take a bus between Bakersfield and LA and a train from Merced to San Jose.
But Cederoth says communities outside of California can learn from the work the Central Valley cities have done to prepare for high-speed rail. "High-speed rail in California is starting in the Central Valley, which, frankly, looks more like America than any other place in the state," Cederoth said. "We want to use high-speed rail as a tool for organizing growth. And, by the same token, the High-Speed Rail Authority wants to see that growth happen, because we want those riders."
High-speed rail faces hurdles in Texas
While construction in California is well underway, long-awaited plans to run Japanese-style bullet trains, or Shinkansen, between Houston and Dallas are just inching along. But the project is generating more interest after Amtrak recently took the lead on the effort. It would be the passenger rail carrier's first foray into high-speed rail.
Texas Central, a U.S. company with the backing of the Japanese company that runs Japan's oldest Shinkansen rail routes, proposed a three-stop service in Texas using the iconic trains. The trip — from the Cedars neighborhood south of downtown Dallas to Brazos Valley near Texas A&M University's College Station campus and on to its final stop in northwest Houston — would take less than 90 minutes.
The company raised money, obtained environmental approvals, and acquired close to a third of the pieces of property it needed to build the new route. But then it went quiet. The project appeared abandoned until Amtrak started pushing. President Joe Biden — well-known as a fan of passenger rail — reportedly discussed the Texas project with Japan's prime minister in April.
William Fulton, FAICP, an author of the book The Texas Triangle: An Emerging Power in the Global Economy, says that type of connection would address one of the long-standing problems with Texas's economy.
Texas Central and Amtrak hope to build high-speed rail in the Lone Star state that is modeled in part on the Japanese Shinkansen train line. Photo courtesy of Texas Central.
"All of the population growth and all of the economic growth in Texas is occurring in that triangle" between Dallas, Houston, and Austin, says Fulton, a professor of practice in urban studies and planning at the University of California San Diego. "But the metros in that area are not well-connected to each other. Houston remains primarily an energy city. Dallas is the big service center for all of the central part of the United States. Austin emerged as a tech center, and San Antonio has always been mostly a military town and much poorer than the other three."
But high-speed rail could help integrate their economies. "The demand for intercity transportation service is clearly there," he says. "There's an enormous amount of flights and intercity buses among those cities."
Still, Robert McHaney, AICP, chair of the American Planning Association's (APA) Transportation Planning Division and the chief of integrated planning at The Goodman Corporation, says high-speed rail faces unique challenges in Texas.
"We have a culture in Texas where you want to park your horse up next to the bar," he says. People are less willing to walk or find other modes of transportation from a train station to their ultimate destination, especially when they could drive instead. And Texas cities are more spread out than legacy cities in the Northeast and often have several job centers. It may also be difficult for a railroad to acquire all of the land it needs, especially in rural areas where residents won't see much benefit from having a closed corridor running through their land.
"We have a very robust, strong roadway network," says McHaney.
Positives and negatives to private rail in Florida
A major turning point in the rollout of high-quality passenger rail in the U.S. came when Brightline introduced luxury service linking major Florida cities. The service started in South Florida in 2017 and expanded to Orlando in 2023. Brightline also is heir to the rail line that Henry Flagler built in the late 1800s that opened Florida to development. That gave Brightline access to downtown stations in Miami, Fort Lauderdale, and West Palm Beach.
When Brightline expanded to Orlando's airport, it did so with generous help from the government. It runs its trains from the Atlantic coast to Orlando on highway right-of-way owned by the state. And the terminal at the airport was built with taxpayer funds.
Brightline's passenger line in Florida stops in six cities, including Miami (above). Other cities, like Tampa Bay, are looking to get connected to the Brightline service. Photo courtesy of Brightline.
The introduction of trains that can reach up to 125 mph galvanized rail advocates in Florida, especially after former governor Rick Scott rejected money from the federal government to build a passenger line between Orlando and Tampa. Now, leaders in the Tampa Bay area want to get connected to the Brightline service, but making their case is complicated by the fact that Brightline is a private company. (Brightline did not respond to inquiries from Planning.)
"It's a private entity, and they operate in stealth mode a little bit," says Whit Blanton, FAICP, the executive director of Forward Pinellas and president of the Florida Chapter of APA. But he says local officials pursue them because of the potential economic boon they could bring to their region.
"My sense is [Brightline is] very supportive of intense development around the station areas, and that's a local government decision to do that," Blanton says. "It's a partnership. They're providing the train service [and] the catalyst, and what local governments are doing along the line is they are changing their comprehensive plans, their land development codes, and their regulations to enable that. It's not just the buildings coming out of the ground. It's also about first-mile and last-mile connectivity, the accessibility, the parking strategies — all of it."
The impact of high-speed rail extends far beyond the station. Pinellas County, which is across the bay from Tampa, is pushing hard for Brightline to bring their trains to the city. "Pinellas leaders acknowledge and recognize that getting Brightline to Tampa is absolutely essential, because if it doesn't get to Tampa, it doesn't get to Pinellas County in any shape or form," Blanton says.
That said, Brightline can drive a tough bargain. Their terms, in fact, proved to be too demanding for the city of Stuart on the Treasure Coast, 100 miles north of Miami. City commissioners voted in September to rescind agreements with Brightline to build a station there. One of the commissioners called the city's agreement with the railroad a "bad deal for taxpayers," because it required the city to cover the cost of building the new station.
Planners in Rancho Cucamonga, California, hope the planned station in their city can serve as a transportation game-changer, allowing people another way to move quickly across the state. Rendering courtesy of Brightline.
Potential to be a transportation game-changer
In Rancho Cucamonga, Burris and Assistant City Manager Elisa Cox are hopeful that Brightline's new high-speed trains will be making regular trips — 18 a day, in each direction — by the beginning of the 2028 Olympics in LA And they think residents are warming up to the concept.
"We have residents who still remember before we were incorporated," Cox says. "They remember the days where we were all grapevines and citrus fields. We're going to get those calls and those comments about how long it takes to get across town. But now, overwhelmingly, our community is really excited about Brightline coming in."
Cox is fully on board with expanding high-speed rail in the U.S.
"This is such a great mode of transportation," Cox says. "It's [been] proven in so many other countries and continents. And, you know, with a country as vast as ours, having that ability to move across the country in another way that is expedient like this is game-changing."
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