Biden touts the high-speed rail line between Southern California and Las Vegas

(BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden touts the high-speed rail line between Southern California and Las Vegas

Election 2024

Ziema Mehta

March 19, 2024

President Biden touted a high-speed rail project that will connect Las Vegas to Southern California, funded by billions of federal dollars, as he campaigned in Nevada on Tuesday.

Guess? It’s coming, he told supporters at a campaign event in Reno. Well over a billion dollars, man. And you’re not going to be able to get someone to want to go to Los Angeles, but people from Los Angeles to want to go to Nevada. Well, they’ll do it in two hours instead of four and take tens of thousands of vehicles off the road and improve the environment.

The planned rail line actually ends in Rancho Cucamonga, in San Bernardino County, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles.

Biden made the comments at the start of a two-day visit to Western swing states largely focused on Latino voters and pocketbook issues such as the cost of insulin, housing affordability, job creation and taxes.

His campaign announced a new ad aimed at Latino voters, produced in English, Spanglish and Spanish, as well as the launch of Latinos

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Biden-Harris, an effort to mobilize Latino voters amid concerns about declining support among Latinos

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for the Democratic ticket.

Nevada and Arizona, where Biden will spend Tuesday and Wednesday, are crucial to his reelection prospects. And the issues at the forefront of these states, such as immigration, the economy, election denial and abortion rights, are driving forces in the presidential battle between Biden and former President Trump.

On Tuesday, during events in Reno and Las Vegas, Biden twice mentioned the $12 billion, 220-mile route between Las Vegas and Rancho Cucamonga that the private company Brightline hopes to open by 2028. With speeds of up to 200 miles per hour, it would be the first true high-speed rail line in the United States.

The federal government is spending $3 billion on the project and is providing access to $3.5 billion in tax-exempt bonds.

The Biden administration is also spending more than $3 billion on the high-speed public rail project that would connect San Francisco to Los Angeles, but that line has faced far more logistical and political hurdles and much more skepticism from experts.

Noting that the Vegas-Rancho Cucamonga line is expected to create 35,000 jobs, Biden said during an official White House appearance in Las Vegas that he hoped the project would “encourage” high-speed rail construction through the Central Valley. .

‘The idea that

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“It’s ridiculous that not a single high-speed rail line has been built in America so far,” Biden said.

Republicans said the Biden administration’s policies have been disastrous for Nevadans.

Nevada families are being crushed by Joe Biden’s failures, from historic inflation and an open border to skyrocketing overdose deaths across the state, Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley said in a statement. Nevadans want results, not lip service, and that’s why they will vote to elect President Donald J. Trump this November.”

Noah Bierman, a Times staff writer in Washington, DC, contributed to this report.

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