WADOT just completed an $2.6 million study (Conducted over four years) recommending a bullet train to connect Vancouver B.C. Washington and Oregon. Partially funded by Microsoft.
WADOT SummaryAnother WADOT releaseAnother oneI left California in the midst of their high speed rail boondoggle. When it was proposed in 2009, that project was estimated to cost $45 billion. In 2013 the cost estimate was up to $200 billion.
At the time a guy I knew at Burlington Northern said you aren't laying bullet train capable rail for less than a billion dollars a mile. This "study" estimates the cost to build a bullet train line from Vancouver BC to Portland at "$24 - $42 billion." That's less than the Cali rail system, which still isn't built.
Existing rail lines can't handle a commuter train going at these speeds, so this would have to be all new infrastructure.
If you want to fleece the taxpayers, creating a publicly-funded private entity that is unaccountable to the voters, but gets to take all their money to
not build things is a great way to do it.