What AECOM's master plan must answer before any track is laid

The US firm AECOM is preparing the master plan: route, demand forecasts, conceptual engineering, and a cost estimate, with at least 70 bridges anticipated and a canal crossing. The plan determines whether the numbers hold.

Background & context

This was Lin Long Projects' own early assessment, written as AECOM's master-plan work began, and it holds up as a checklist for everything that followed: at least 70 bridges and a canal crossing meant cost and engineering risk would concentrate in a handful of structures, exactly what later played out with the standalone Renfe canal-bridge review and the Campana tunnel flag from KPMG/Steer's 2026 briefing.

The demand forecast question raised here is still, as of mid-2026, the least publicly answered part of the project: no ridership or freight-volume figures have been released, even as the contracts meant to produce them have been reported. Revisit this piece once AECOM's studies are actually published.