California High-Speed Rail

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The planned line would connect Los Angeles with San Francisco by 2029 with speeds up 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) and allow for future extensions to San Diego and Sacramento. Initial funding for the project was approved by California voters on November 4, 2008, and authorized the issuance of US$9.95 billion in bonds for the project.

The first phase of the line will be constructed in three interconnected segments: one in the Central Valley, one linking the Central Valley to the Los Angeles Basin, and another linking the Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area. Future segments include routes to Sacramento and San Diego.

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The project’s cost and scope have long been a source of controversy. The California High-Speed Rail Authority has estimated the project’s year-of-expenditure cost at $68.4 billion (2011 estimate). In July 2014 The World Bank reported that the per kilometer cost of California’s high-speed rail system was $56 million, less than Phase 1 of High Speed 2 in the United Kingdom ($173 million per km), but more than the average cost of $17–21 million per km of high speed rail in China and $25–39 million per km for similar projects in Europe.

The system will extend from San Francisco and Sacramento, via the Central Valley, to Los Angeles and San Diego via the Inland Empire. As planned, the track from San Francisco to Los Angeles would be 520 miles (840 km). Possible stations are shown on the statewide rail modernization map at right. In January 2012, the Authority released a study, started in May 2011, that favors a route through Antelope Valley over one that parallels Interstate 5

Sustained construction began on January 6, 2015 with the first major segment starting this spring.

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