What has taken so long on high-speed rail is not hammering nails or pouring concrete. It’s negotiating. Negotiating with courts, with funders, with business owners, with homeowners, with farm owners. Those negotiations cost time, which costs money. Those negotiations lead to changes in the route or the build or the design, which costs money. Those negotiations lead to public disappointment and frustration, which leads to loss of money that might otherwise have been approved if the project were speeding toward completion.
