In California’s Central Valley, construction of the long overdue and over-budget high-speed rail line that may eventually shuttle passengers between San Francisco and Los Angeles in less than three hours is underway, as KTLA saw firsthand during a recent visit.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority took reporter Chip Yost on a tour of the Hanford Viaduct. The viaduct is essentially a massive 6,300-foot-long land bridge that will one day, if everything goes as planned, have four lanes of high-speed rail track on it and a regional station where people can get on and off the train if they want to.
It should be finished sometime next year; multiple other structures along the route have already been completed. In total, 78 have been completed or are currently underway.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has repeatedly voiced his support for the work, stating in his 2019 State of the State address, “High-Speed Rail is much more than a train project. It’s about economic transformation. It’s about unlocking the enormous potential of the [Central] Valley.”