High-Speed Rail (HSR) - Toronto/Pearson/Kitchener/London

[ijmorlan]

Lmfao, I can tell it's election time again!

4 billion dollars just for "planning and bureaucracy" is hilarious. Good god this country is pathetic hahah.

Those with experience with this sort of thing will tell you that's a reasonable budget for detailed design - over 1000 km of corridor, which must be aligned very accurately to permit the speeds they wish to reach. Every hill that must be leveled or embankment installed needs to not only be designed out, but have its environmental impact confirmed. Then there's all the support infrastructure, such as motive power substations and the like. A big project has big budgets for all of its stages.

$4M/km?

That is approximately 10 times a number I found for building (not designing) a 2-lane road in a rural area:

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-qu...0a-eng.htm

Now, I know there is a difference between a 2-lane road and a high speed railway line, but I think there is still something wrong here. Essentially, if you design a 2-lane road subject to an extreme constraint on curves, grades, and ground conditions, you have really designed a high-speed railway line, except for the detailed part where things like signal locations and power substations are figured out. How much does it cost Sweden or France to design a railway line?