You claimed that land acquisition was the cost driver. I used the silver line as an example of because it’s a relatively rare situation where the land acquisition cost was low because it is carried in a freeway median that was originally designed to host a metro extension.
I don’t see how you go from that to a comparison against literally the most expensive road tunnel in US history, especially given that the whole point of the silver line example is that it runs through the exurbs on an existing freeway median.
I used the silver line as an example of because it’s a relatively rare situation where the land acquisition cost was low because it is carried in a freeway median
I'm not intimately familiar with the project (and had to ask you which specifically you'd meant), and you failed to adequately develop your argument between sly ad homs.
I'm proposing that land aquisition, as a net factor -- fighting NIMBY battles, as an example, would be a component -- is one of at least three factors disadvantaging rail vs highway construction in the US.
And yet despite this, your own cherry-picked example comes out far ahead, even allowing for what I'd noted were rough and likely advantageous numbers, than a contemporaneous urban highway project. You've not presented much by way of numbers or cites yourself.
If you don't mind a personal observation: you come across, repeatedly and not only with me, as so bent on burying your counterparties that you constantly shift burdens of proof, fail to construct or support your arguments sufficiently, or care to accidentally learn anything along the way. I honestly didn'y know how the Silver vs. Dig comparison would turn out. I simply followed the maths to their conclusion.
