It is 3x the cost of light rail (which only goes 50mph) construction in a city. It is 4x the cost of highway construction in a city. In an urban environment,

It is 3x the cost of light rail (which only goes 50mph) construction in a city. It is 4x the cost of highway construction in a city. In an urban environment, land acquisition is the most expensive part of the cost of large construction projects. We've had one successful large construction project (T-REX) here in Denver that involved both highways and light rail. It was completed 4 years ago, on time and under budget. At that time, the light rail construction costs were about 20 megabucks/mile. The cost of construction materials have shot up since 2006 and the next large (FasTracks is almost all light rail) construction project is currently running about 50% over budget (official estimates) to 100% over budget (unofficial estimates). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_T-REX_Project_(TRansportation_EXpansion)# http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_T-REX_Project_(TRanspo... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks Construction costs for rail go up sharply with the speed of the trains. Once one gets into "high speed rail" categories (which in the US means average speed > 90 mph between cities), grade crossings have to be replaced with overpasses, as the European experiences with HSR is that the time taken to stop a train is greater than the visible horizon for the train - so a "stuck" vehicle on the tracks will be hit as the train cannot possibly stop in time. To get some perspective on costs, rural freight lines run about 1 megabuck/mile, with passenger lines running about 2x that. Paving interstate highways runs about 1 megabuck/mile/lane. Disclaimer: I ran for election in 2008 for an office related to this.