Interview: Construction of America's first high-speed rail is picking up pace

The construction of a high-speed rail in California , the first of its kind in the America, is picking up the pace, said Don Richard, Chairman of Board of the California High-Speed Rail Authority.

Last week, the Authority released its Draft 2016 Business Plan. It revealed that the line between the Silicon Valley and the Central Valley will be the first segment to construct. It will be completed by 2024 and starts operation in 2025.

The drafted new Business Plan also lowered the estimated overall costs of the phase 1 construction from San Francisco to Anaheim in Southern California from 67.6 billion dollars to 64.2 billion.

"We don't have all the funding identified today that we need. We believe we have enough funding to build the first segment," said Richard in a recent interview with Xinhua.

"We think once we show that high-speed rail is working in California, we will get more support," he said, "What we are focusing now is how to get a train up and running as quickly as possible."

The Authority now has 12.3 billion dollars committed funding from State and Federal sources, as well as about 650 million dollars Cap-and-Trade fund in FY2014-2016 and 25 percent of the Cap-and-Trade proceeds each year since 2016, which will be about 500 million dollars .

Richard is confident that more and more people will understand the importance of a high-speed rail to California and the system will eventually be completed.

At its second phase, the system is planned to extend to Sacramento and San Diego, totaling 800 miles (1,287 kilometers) with up to 24 stations. It will connect the capital of the state Sacramento, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, the Central Valley which is of agricultural importance, Los Angeles and the southern border city of San Diego, which is the third largest city in California.

On Jan. 6, 2015, an official groundbreaking ceremony of the California High-Speed Rail was held at the central valley town of Fresno. There are several civil works now under construction, but major projects are yet to begin.

A lot of progress have been made during the past seven years since more than a half of Californian voters approved the bond measure Proposition 1A for the high-speed rail in 2008.

By the end of January this year, the Authority has acquired 642 land parcels of the 1,458 parcels they need, and 266 small business companies are working on the program statewide.

"Many Americans have not ridden on a high-speed rail. So part of our challenge is that people can not imagine what it would be like," Richard said, "Everyday as we are doing more construction, we are putting more and more people onto the work. People will have greater belief that it is going to happen."

In 2013, Richard traveled through China's high-speed rail from Beijing to Shanghai and other cities. "We know that China as well as some other nations have built high-speed rail networks, incredibly impressive," he said," We have much to learn from China, Japan and European systems," he said. Enditem