WASHINGTON — Brightline West is seeking a $6 billion government loan to address increased construction costs for its planned route between Southern California and Las Vegas, Nev.
A Department of Transportation document indicates the company behind the project, DesertXpress Enterprises, LLC, applied for the loan under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which dates to 1998. That program provides low, fixed-interest loans for “qualified projects of regional and national significance.” The application indicates that the overall cost of the project is now estimated at $21.05 billion, up from an earlier estimate of $16 billion.
Bloomberg reports that Brightline CEO Mike Reininger said rising labor and material costs — reflecting increased demand for projects such as data centers, power plants, and transportation infrastructure — were driving the cost increase. The federal loan would take the place of $6 billion in bank funding under the original financing plan, while the company will raise equity to cover most of the $5.5 billion cost increase, Reininger told Bloomberg.
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy has previously said he is “tentatively supportive” of the Brightline West project because of its private development [see “House committee questions Duffy …,” Trains.com, July 16, 2025]. The Trump administration has pulled funding for California’s state-developed high-speed project, as well as the Texas Central proposal for a Dallas-Houston high speed line.
Brightline’s finances are way too shaky for a loan of that amount. Seems the project costs keep rising so I guess it’s not that different for CA HSR situation. This country doesn’t have or want the know how to build high speed rail it would upset the transportation hierarchy & the sources that profit from it.
Well, Galen, one paragraph of yours has two thoughts (1) you say Brightline West doesn’t have the money (which is certainly does not). and (2) USA doesn’t know how to build HSR (which is also true).
I smell a scam. Brightline wants to build its railroad with borrowed money it will never pay back. There’s a precedent, which is I-4 of (Florida) Brightline’s Orlando extension in Florida. Florida DOT essentially built the rail r/w by rebuilding the freeway. Brightline will never be able to compensate the state.
In order for Brightline West to sufficiently fill its trains so as to meet its daily O+M costs, it will need massive parking garages and access roads at its stations. Who will pay for those?
Sorry, folks, trains can barely make it in America on existing freight railroad tracks. Building an all-new railroad doesn’t add up. You want to get to Las Vegas, you will have your choice of flying out of LAX, San Diego, Hollywood-Burbank, or Ontario. Brightline West is a pipe dream.
So we are potentially giving Brightline a break building through the middle of nowhere, but Chicago has to be told “tough, deal with it!” when building a line to get into underserved African American neighborhoods? I smell the stench of hypocrisy of the highest order…
I’m with you, Alex. CTA for all its problems and Chicago with all its mismanagement, is a real transit system that serves actual people. Brightline West is hooey vaporware. I’m no fan of the way stuff is done in Illinois (as I posted on these pages yesterday or the day before yesterday) but even I have to admit that CTA serves a real function.
Now back to Brightline West. Its advocates point to a supposedly wide median where putting in railroad tracks is totally easy. Every photo I have seen shows a standard rural 70-foot median (including the two inside paved shoulders). Same width as rural interstate highways anywhere. You can’t just plop down a roadbed and tracks. You have to virtually rebuild the freeway, as the rural median is the drainage. Also, you need to build continuous concrete traffic barriers to either side of the tracks, as the tracks would be within the recovery zone for errant motor vehicles. A principle of traffic engineering is that you really don’t want those concrete barriers, you put them in where you have to, notably on urban freeways that lack recovery runout.
Brightline West? I call bull surplus. I don’t want my tax money into that fiasco. There’s no way it would recover its construction costs, even if it does somehow cover day-to-day operation and maintenance. Which I very much doubt.
Give the money to Chicago.