exorbitant costs of rail construction in the United States mean that many such projects never get off the drawing board. In cities such as Austin, Atlanta, New York, and Philadelphia, enormous projected costs have resulted in rail projects being canceled or scaled back significantly.7 And it’s not only rail infrastructure. Road tunnels, highway bridges, and roadways are all more expensive to build in the United States than in major European countries.8 A study by economists Zach Liscow and Leah Brooks found that the inflation-adjusted cost of American highway construction tripled between the 1960s and the 1980s