In Japan the cost of building the tunnels through mountains and undersea for Shinkansen ranges from $20-100M/km. Since there's no default ownership of subsurface land rights in CA it would be cheaper and faster to dig tunnels than pay for the land rights and environmental impacts.

For the $231B you ought to be able to get 2-3000 miles of tunnel done (3x what is proposed on the surface). Of course the stations are still a huge cost, because those have to be above ground, but you could choose where to put them. The bridges and aqueducts that have been built so far (Bakersfield to Merced) are intentionally where land costs are low and no one will ride them.

I agree, this isn't about figuring out how to build high-speed rail for riders. This is about figuring out how to extract maximum funds from tax/rate payers. It's just like PG&E. I'd go as far as to say that all the consultants and construction companies that have been paid should be banned from future public infrastructure builds unless the money spent is paid back.

And I WANT highspeed rail.