Comment by ben_w
13 hours ago
They're less unified than the UK. Also less unified than just England, which is where HS2 is entirely located, much to the annoyance of Wales who still has to pay for it.
> their population is 6X smaller and GDP per capita is twice as high
2x per capita * 1/6 the population = 1/3 the available money
Gotthard is longer than all the tunnels in HS2 combined. Total cost: CHF 9.560 billion as of December 2015 (it opened 1 June 2016), about £6.5bn at the exchange rate at the time.
As of 2020, the budget envelope set out by the DfT is £98 billion. HS2 is not fifteen times longer than GBT, it is (currently) four.
People think they are less unified because there are so many parties but die Zauberformel (magic formula) tends to toss that out the window in practice.