California Breaks Ground on Nation's First High Speed Rail Line

The State of California has broken ground on a massive new infrastructure project that is the first of its kind in the United States.

The Los Angeles Times reports that California Governor Jerry Brown and other notable Californians broke ground on the first segment of a high speed rail line that will eventually connect Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The event took place in Fresno, essentially the middle of the trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

The project is expected to cost around $68 billion and created 66,000 jobs a year for the next 16 years.

The rail line is projected to be completed in 2028. Money from the project is coming from both the federal government and the government of California. Voters have already set aside $9 billion for the project, and the federal government has promised another $3.2 billion. The California State Legislature is also chipping in by promising that 25% of revenue from the state's cap-and-trade program will be for the rail project. That figure could range anywhere from $250 million to $1 billion annually.

Another third of the funding for the project is expected to come in the form of private investment, according to the Times.

The purpose of the rail line is to connect the economically vibrant metropolitan areas of northern and southern California with the depressed Central Valley. The desire to bring economic benefits to the Central Valley is why groundbreaking for the project began in Fresno, which is one of the valley's largest cities.

Bullet trains have been a feature of developed nations like Japan and France for decades, but the trend never caught on in the United States although such trains make long distance travel easy and provide enormous economic growth and benefits.