So HART has access or control of only about 1/3 of the land they need, which would imply the remaining owners aren't interested in selling their land below market.  So for the remaining couple hundred cases, how long will that take to grind through the courts? Hard to see that taking under 5 years, more like 10. It doesn't matter that HART has bought the land purchases so far under budget (by a ridiculously paltry $3M). Each year of delay is a huge budget increase for rail as the marching army (of workers) has to be kept in place.  That's probably $0.5-1B yearly just in the delays. It would be much cheaper for HART just to cough up what the owners want.