Ceremony kicks off the United States' high speed future

The United States took its first step towards a high-speed future August 11, as federal and state officials witnessed the groundbreaking for the country's first high-speed rail station.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood were both on hand to see the first stones laid of the Transbay Transit Center in San Francisco, which will be the northern terminus for the California High Speed Rail system.

California has been awarded $2.25 billion (€1.76 billion) by the Obama administration for its high-speed rail network, which will connect Los Angeles with San Francisco at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour (354 km/h), cutting the journey time to 2 hours and 38 minutes.

Eventually, the route will connect to Sacramento in the north and San Diego at the southern tip of the state.

At the ceremony, Pelosi compared the new station to New York's historic Grand Central Terminal, constructed during the heyday of long distance rail travel in the United States.

“Today, in breaking ground on the Transbay Transit Center, we are opening a new chapter in that history of progress,” she said.

“We are coming together to create jobs and revitalize our economy, and we are laying the first building blocks of a new ‘Grand Central Station of the West."

The building is set to serve over 45 million passengers annually when it is completed, and features a 5.4 acre (2.8 hectare) public park on the roof, along with a bus terminal and two rail levels which will house Caltrain and the future high speed rail trains.

It is scheduled to open in August 2017.

http://transbaycenter.org/
http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/