It might not be fully comparable, since most kilometers of high speed rail will be on the countryside and not in the city. The construction costs in city center

It might not be fully comparable, since most kilometers of high speed rail will be on the countryside and not in the city. The construction costs in city centers are always much higher. E.g. "Stuttgart 21" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21) which is about redoing railway in the Stuttgart area is also in the billion € range, despite being less than 60km (> 150M€/km) - and the majority of the 10B€ for that will probably be spent on the less than 10km of tracks inside the city. That said the Ontario cost certainly still feels high. The ongoing construction of the new broadway extension for Vancouvers skytrain system is even more costly. They are also building around 4 miles, and the estimated cost is 3 billion CAD (https://www.infrastructurebc.com/projects/projects-under-construction/broadway-subway-project https://www.infrastructurebc.com/projects/projects-under-con...).