One is on rising costs. What newspapers (and politicians) decrying rising costs often fail to mention is that costs rise due to inflation - i.e., the rise in 2000 prices may be much less than that in actual prices. But f.e. opponents of public transport will always emphasize the latter.

Another is the "green extremists". I am both a pro-rail (and a railroader) and green, and sometimes find myself in a position where I want to defend either side against the other... So here, I agree that there are completely unreasonable environmentalist protesters, but there is also often the issue of lack of local consultations (the government and bureaucrats are far away and think in macroeconomic terms - their triple-checking is not enough), or consultations without taking any input into account as plan modifications. In Switzerland or Spain, and to a lesser degree Germany, local consultations are well-organised and standardised in the process, and there is less of this trouble. From the little I heard of the long history of the Terzo Valico project, TAV's local consultation seems rather messy and unsatisfactory.

Finally, a furthering question: are you talking about protests against the Torino-Novara line specifically, or is this connected to the Val di Susa protests against the new French-Italian line with the giant base tunnel?

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}