Brightline West high-speed rail cost skyrockets in new document

Mick Akers, Las Vegas Review-Journal on Oct 2, 2025

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LAS VEGAS — The cost to build the long-touted Brightline West Las Vegas to Southern California high-speed rail line has ballooned to $21.05 billion, according to a U.S. Transportation Department document.

Brightline West, backed by Fortress Investment Group, applied for a $6 billion loan from the federal government on Sept. 26, according to a list of applicants who have filed for financial assistance with the U.S. DOT’s Build America Bureau Credit Assistance Pipeline. The project is listed as Brightline West, with an estimated project cost of $21.05 billion, which is a substantial increase from the previously touted $12 billion project.

A Brightline West spokesperson confirmed the new price tag to the Review-Journal Thursday but didn’t immediately have information on what was behind the large project budget increase.

Brightline secured a $3 billion grant from the Federal Railroad Administration for the project’s construction in 2023 and this year sold a total of $2.5 billion in private activity bonds from both Nevada and California. In March, Nevada Department of Transportation director Tracy Larkin Thomason said that Brightline was working to secure $6 billion in construction loans. The Brightline spokesperson could not say if that was tied to the $6 billion loan applied for with the U.S. DOT.

U.S. DOT Secretary Sean Duffy praised the project earlier this year, while bashing the California Central Valley high-speed rail project. This summer, the FRA revoked $4 billion in unspent federal funding previously awarded to the California Central Valley project.

Brightline West plans call for a 218-mile high-speed rail line between a station just north of Blue Diamond Road in Las Vegas and one in Rancho Cucamonga, California, with stations in Hesperia and Apple Valley in California along the way. The Rancho Cucamonga station would provide a connection to downtown Los Angeles via the existing Metrolink passenger rail system.

In July, crews began grading the site for the Brightline West station. Crews will also relocate a box culvert and sewer lines underneath the property, which needs to happen before construction on the train depot can begin.

Geotechnical work for the project has been underway along I-15 in Nevada and California for over a year. Larkin Thomason said last month, before Brightline applied for the federal loan, that she was still confident that heavy work on the project to begin early next year.

“Real construction will really start after the first of the year,” Larkin Thomason said at the Sept. 23 ribbon-cutting ceremony for the I-15/Tropicana interchange project.

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