I mean, I know cost of living and land, population density etc all play a part and are more of an issue here than the likes of Spain, but only to some degree. This article is from 2014 but offers a comparative cost benchmark that would not have changed much for Continental countries, or Japan. Cost summary below for those who can’t be arsed
Spain is the world’s most efficient high-speed rail builder, Toronto mayoral candidate John Tory announced his plan for relieving Canada’s busiest subway line, and New York City struggles with a diagonal elevator for its newest subway station.
nextcity.org
By comparison the latest projections show a cost of €220m per km in the UK.
Worth writing this down for full effect. Feel free to mentally increase the non-UK figures a bit to account for the six-year gap. All figures in Euros per km
Spain- 19m/ km
France- over 20m
Germany- 33m
Italy- 44m
Japan- 45m
And the UK’s current figures?
€220m/ km
I mean, what the actual fuck?