Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia received federal stimulus money for high-speed rail projects, according to the U.S. Secretary of Transportation. Click on the map to see the full-size map.

By Jennifer Baldwin

California has received more than a quarter of $8 billion in federal stimulus money announced by President Barack Obama for high-speed rail projects across the country today.

The $2.25 billion will help to fund the first four segments of the California High-Speed Rail, including the Bakersfield to Fresno segment.

“It’s just a real boon to the economy. What that means is we can accelerate the project … and start creating jobs,” said Fran Florez, who has served on the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s board since 2002. (Florez is running against Pete Parra in the Democratic primary for the 30^th State Assembly District.)

The four sections of the high-speed rail that have received funding are:

• Los Angeles to Anaheim

• San Francisco to San Jose

• Merced to Fresno

• Fresno to Bakersfield

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act grant to California totals less than the $4.7 billion the state applied for, but still represents the largest project funded in the country. Other projects include $1.25 billion to Florida. All together, 31 states and the District of Columbia will receive grants, according to Fast Lane, a blog by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood.

“With this historic $8 billion investment by President Obama, we are jump-starting American High-Speed rail,” he wrote. “High-speed rail corridors will offer competitive door-to-door trip times. From Los Angeles to San Francisco, a 2-hour 40-minute comfortable ride from city center to city center will replace a 6-hour trek of fighting traffic to get out of one downtown and fighting traffic to get into another.”

California High-Speed Rail officials believed California had a competitive edge for receiving the grants due to 10 years of planning and the voter-approved matching funds from Proposition 1A in November 2008.

“We always knew we had a good chance because we were the furthest along of any project in country, and we had the bond measure,” Florez said. “We had a lot of good things going for us.”

Florez predicts Californians will see groundbreaking for construction within two years and says the entire project will create 450,000 permanent jobs and 650,000 construction jobs.

Meanwhile, specific routes and station locations have yet to be determined, and proposals are still undergoing environmental review.

“We’ve been in the planning stages for so long,” Florez said. “Now we really have work to do.”

Read our past coverage of the California High-Speed Rail:

Good environmental news for Bakersfield

California High-Speed Rail goes after billions in federal grants