The California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) and the High Desert Corridor Joint Powers Agency (HDC JPA) have signed a new memorandum of understanding that will provide the crucial “missing link” between the only two high-speed rail projects under construction in the country.
The agreement, announced Monday, formalizes cooperation between the two agencies to connect California High-Speed Rail from its future Palmdale station to the privately owned Brightline West. Brightline is currently under construction, and will connect from Southern Californai to Las Vegas. If all goes as planned, a future rail rider will be able to get from San Francisco to Las Vegas in a matter of hours riding high-speed trains.
“The High Desert Corridor is the missing link that transforms separate rail projects into an integrated network,” CHSRA CEO Ian Choudri said in a statement announcing the agreement. The Authority said the partnership will help coordinate planning and improve opportunities for future state and federal funding.
The High Desert Corridor also brought us the world’s greatest EIR cover, first noticed at the Streetsblog L.A. tumblr, but eventually covered in the Los Angeles Times.
The High Desert Corridor is a planned 54-mile multimodal transportation corridor linking the Antelope Valley in Los Angeles County with the Victor Valley in San Bernardino County. The corridor had been envisioned as accommodating multiple transportation modes, including passenger rail, highway expansion, freight movement, renewable energy transmission, and utility infrastructure within a shared right-of-way. In 2019 Caltrans canceled the freeway expansion portion, envisioned as over 200 lane-miles of new highway. This refocused some L.A. County funding toward High Desert High-Speed Rail.
The addition of rail to the corridor will also create new regional travel options for the growing High Desert communities in northern Los Angeles County, while reducing dependence on Interstate 15, one of the nation’s busiest highway corridors during peak L.A.-Las Vegas travel periods.
Earlier this year, the California Transportation Commission allocated $8 million through the Transit and Intercity Rail Capital Program for preliminary engineering and project development for the High Desert Corridor. The corridor has also secured federal planning grants and labor agreements intended to streamline future construction.
While Monday’s agreement does not commit new construction funding, it establishes a framework for the two agencies to jointly pursue grants, coordinate environmental work, and integrate the corridor into California’s broader rail planning.
For California’s high-speed rail program, the partnership represents another step toward shifting the conversation from an isolated Central Valley project to a connected statewide, and now inter-state, network.