[blamazon]

Although I'm a fan, Brightline also leveraged a bunch of existing rail, whereas the California project is almost entirely new right of way. That makes it hard to compare the projects apples to apples in my eyes. It seems intuitive that building a new rail line from scratch is going to cost more and take longer than building off an existing rail line.

I believe this is also the core of why Brightline has so many level crossings, and thus accident casualties as Floridians become accustomed to at-grade high speed trains. California high speed rail probably won't ever have to reckon with that grim issue, as it's been engineered out.