Rancho Cucamonga, a car-centric city 40 miles east of Los Angeles, is positioning itself to become America’s first high-speed rail hub as Brightline breaks ground on its $12 billion Las Vegas-to-Southern California line, according to Bloomberg.

The private rail company plans to begin service in 2028, with trains reaching 200 mph and cutting the LA-Vegas journey to just over two hours. “There’s no precedent in the United States for this,” said Matt Burris, the city’s deputy city manager, regarding high-speed rail’s transformative potential.

The suburban city, which never developed a proper downtown, is creating the HART District—a square-mile area surrounding the future station designed for mixed-use development. “When it became clear to us that Brightline was coming, we came up with a sp

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