Even the most expensive TGV lines, have a per-km cost of around $20m/km in present dollars, and that's high enough to cause controversy. The bulk of the network was built for prices of $2-4m/km at the time, which is about $3-5.5m/km if you adjust for inflation. For a 700-km line like SF-LA, even the $20m outlier cost would work out to only $14 billion. Where's the 8x multiplier coming from? No TGV line has cost >$100m/km, or even close, in 2013 dollars. I am not sure any line in the world has cost that much, even in inhospitable terrain like China's high-speed rail in Tibet, or Japan's high-speed rail through the mountains.
>I am not sure any line in the world has cost that much, even in inhospitable terrain like China's high-speed rail in Tibet, or Japan's high-speed rail through the mountains.
you should check cost of highways in Moscow - $300M/mile. Hint - it isn't about terrain :)
Crossrail is 118km and is going to cost 16bn GBP or about 135m GBP per km (~$209m/km) (if I've done my maths right.)
Though it's somewhat difficult to separate out the 42km of new tunnels (expensive) and a whole bunch of new stations (expensive) including a whole bunch of revamped ones in the centre of London (very expensive).
I'd just like to plug the Dictionary of Numbers chrome extension at this point which provides context for all of the numbers in this thread. For example, did you know that $14 billion [≈ net worth of Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft]?
Maybe the real estate that it goes through is significantly more expensive? I know if you wanted to build a new, totally segregated line from DC to Boston would probably cost 100B easily.
France probably doesn't tie both its rail agency's hands behind its back with pointless environmental impact reports (the sole purpose of which seems to be to generate extra revenue for civil engineering contractors) and then let NIMBYs sue because this or that insignificant detail wasn't included.
France is an interessting case. If I remember well, the have a group of people (project managers, politians, you name it) preparing the case well before any actual construction work starts. Yet, as afar as I remember, there actually were some controversies when they started a TGV line somewhere in northern France. But it still works pretty well, one benefit of being highly centralized.
Another factor at play is that TGV lines are purpose built for high-speed traffic (curve radius, climb rate, ...) while for example in Germany they are mostly shared. That makes the single TGV track cheaper, but you still ahve to built another track for lets say freight. If want another track, that is.
But the cool thing ist that TGV don't stop at every single village that happens to be the hometown of some polititian.
I think one aspect is just that the decision is made definitively at some point, in advance. People have different opinions: impact on historic buildings, noise, environment, other things. This is all debated up front, and then the legislature either approves it, or it doesn't. But when it was approved, it was approved. You can't sue in court to stop the plan on environmental grounds or noise grounds or something else, once the legislature has decided to go ahead with it, because the authorizing legislation supersedes any contrary legislation.
But the U.S. delegates decision-making to agencies and courts in a way that this doesn't happen. California might take input for a long time before deciding on its plan, but its final plan is still not final. Anyone can sue it for many different reasons. Maybe it violates the federal Clean Air Act, maybe it violates property rights, maybe something else. The decision is never final until every challenge to an agency or court is decided, which massively adds to uncertainty and costs.
