I have very little knowledge of Italy or Austria (pretty little of Switzerland, for that matter), but I gather that Italy can reasonably be understood as a very

I have very little knowledge of Italy or Austria (pretty little of Switzerland, for that matter), but I gather that Italy can reasonably be understood as a very stable place in exactly the opposite way that the US is stable. Italian places seem very stable, but the wider governance is not enduring, whereas much of the US is held together by a strong national government despite the fact that the places are constantly in flux with most places built cheaply and not for permanence. Also, it presumably required EU funds to push the project through. My read of GBT and this new CST system is that both are private ventures. That is to say, I take the Swiss projects to be at the tail end of careful analysis, whereas the others may be the result of political desire absent a compelling business case, sort of like trying to make rail transit work in Southern California.