When the great and the good of the American high speed rail industry gathered in Washington, D.C. over May 13-15 for the U.S. High Speed Rail Association’s (USHSR) 2025 annual conference, there was tremendous excitement tinged with anxiety.
Several attendees told Newsweek they believe the U.S. could be on the verge of a high-speed rail breakthrough, setting the stage for the kind of comprehensive national system enjoyed in the likes of China, Japan and Western Europe.
Ray LaHood, a Republican who served as Transportation Secretary under President Obama from 2009 to 2013, said if one of the two high-speed rail lines currently under construction is completed, it will prove “wildly popular” and boost support for high-speed rail across the nation. Other insiders agreed, but argued permitting reform and more explicit federal support will be needed first.
There has been concern over the Trump administration’s attitude toward high-speed rail. The conference took place one month after Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced $63.9 million in funding for a proposed Dallas to Houston route had been scrapped, and amid rumors that the California High Speed Rail line under construction between Los Angeles and San Francisco could lose federal support.
This week, Duffy said there is “no viable path” to complete California High Speed Rail on time or on budget and warned the federal government could pull billions in funding.
State of U.S. High-Speed Rail
At present there aren’t any high-speed rail networks—defined by the International Union of Railways (UIC) as operating at a minimum of 250 kilometers per hour (155 miles per hour) along specially built tracks—that are operational in the U.S.
This compares unfavorably with the likes of Spain, Japan and France, which have around 2,460 miles, 1,830 miles and 1,740 miles of track respectively currently in use.
Most impressively, China, the chief geopolitical rival of the U.S., has gone from having virtually no high-speed rail lines to nearly 30,000 miles over the past couple of decades.
Construction is currently underway on two high-speed rail lines in the U.S.—Brightline West, which will connect Las Vegas to Southern California, and California High Speed Rail between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
A range of other projects have been proposed around the country, including plans to link Boston, New York and Washington, D.C. in the Northeast; Dallas, Houston and Fort Worth in Texas; and Chicago to East St. Louis in Illinois.
Obstacles
When asked why the U.S. had failed to build a high-speed network comparable to other advanced economies, industry experts told Newsweek there are major issues with permitting, financing and cross-party political support.
California High Speed Rail has sparked particular controversy, with its cost ballooning from $34 billion to over $128 billion, while the completion date has been pushed back.
Terry Hynes, an attorney specializing in rail infrastructure projects, argued planning issues in particular have bottled up capital investment. He is currently part of a team investigating how the permitting process could be sped up for USHSR.
Addressing Newsweek, he said: “I’ve been in the business 46 years, making railroads, and I’ve been frustrated as hell representing the high-speed rail…it just takes forever. And there’s private money that could be brought in. Wall Street’s got a lot of money looking for infrastructure investments.
“This is a wonderful infrastructure investment, the trouble is they see those permitting times. Eight years for environmental review, then you build for four years and in year 13 you’re finally going to see some money. Nobody’s going to invest in that.”
Hynes added: “The biggest issue to my mind is this permitting issue. The review period takes so long, the cost goes up and the more expensive it is for people doing a cost-benefit analysis, the analyses looks less beneficial.”
Brandon Wheeler, a senior program manager at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, a local government-based voluntary association, said a lack of national leadership has undermined high-speed rail construction across the U.S.
Speaking to Newsweek, he said: “We don’t have a national single point of leadership on this…without that single point of leadership it really is a little bit hopscotch and we’re making the best we can of it.
“Until there is, like the interstate highway system, there’s a national vision to create and you have a vision around the ability to move military and goods and those kinds of things. Until our airports get bad enough, until our roads get bad enough, until people have this massive outcry and we’re able to concentrate them on something, we’re going to have to find what that single vision is to rally around or we will fall behind the rest of the world.”
LaHood agreed, saying: “I think the success of these projects in Europe and Asia is largely due to the national government making investments but then encouraging the private sector. Once the national government makes a commitment, it’s easier for the private sector then—they know it’s going to be a stable project, they know their investment is going to be good.”
If You Build It They Will Come
In 2023, Brightline, the first privately built rail line in the U.S. to open in nearly a century, began operations between Miami and Orlando in Florida and has since seen passenger numbers surge.
While Brightline runs below the high-speed standard, LaHood said it showed Americans are ready to embrace new rail networks, and argued one successful project in the U.S. could turbocharge the whole industry.
“If you look at the Brightline project in Florida…It is wildly popular,” he said. “They’re putting more and more trains on that track every day because people like the idea that they don’t have to get on the I95 and they don’t have to travel on highways that are crowded with big trucks and cars…
“If you build it they will come, if you build it it will be successful and I think that will be the case with Brightline West, Las Vegas to L.A., and I think it will be true San Francisco to L.A. I think they will be wildly popular. I really believe at this point if you build it they will come and the proof of that is Europe and Asia—their trains are wildly popular.”
Speaking to Newsweek, Portland Mayor Keith Wilson, who is advocating for a “Cascadia” high-speed rail line linking the city to Seattle in Washington and Vancouver in British Columbia, said: “Our system continues to be compacted and stagnant.
“The great cities from around the world are all tending to go towards high-speed rail and we need an opportunity to unlock our economic renaissance, which is what’s missing in our country right now, and high-speed rail would move us forward and get us completing again with the world.”
Trust Fund
A number of industry insiders told Newsweek the formation of a federal government trust fund could provide the financial muscle for a major U.S. high-speed rail expansion.
Asked what one development would most speed up U.S. high-speed rail, Jim Derwinski, executive director of Chicago rail system Metra, replied: “A trust fund so it’s national, it’s bipartisan so it doesn’t change from administration to administration and it can be supported through the states as a national effort.
“If you’re going to build something, to compare it to Europe and Asia right now, it’s got to have a national campaign right now.”
Arthur Sohikian is executive director of High Desert Corridor, a proposed high-speed rail line that would link Brightline West to the California High Speed Rail line.
He expressed a similar view to Derwinski, telling Newsweek: “We have to energize the public to make that happen…we’ve been trying to get a trust fund for rail since I started my career, it seems.
“For whatever reason why the politicians won’t grab onto that and won’t do that, especially when you realize the Highway Trust Fund keeps diminishing as cars get more efficient, we’re paying less in gas taxes, that fund is diminishing…we have to invest in this infrastructure as a nation, and until that happens, seriously, we’re all going to be trying to do our little pieces.”
The U.S. High Speed Rail Association paid travel and hotel expenses for Newsweek reporter James Bickerton to attend its 2025 annual conference.
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