2000.

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

The "Alta Velocita'" project was started long before Berlusconi came to power; officially, it was the only way to keep the italian railway links with Europe "up to speed", because France and Germany had big plans already underway (those lucky, mainly flat countries can afford to upgrade their rail system with relative ease).

From the start, it was clear that this project was going to be full of pork for everyone involved... they included all sort of long-dues and/or unnecessary upgrades, like a partial revamp for the central station in Bologna (a previous attempt at replacing this crucial node with an office building for speculative reasons had been shot down by citizen worried about losing a symbol of the fascist terrorist actions in the early 80s - google for "Bologna 2 august 1980") and costs started to grow; and it was still in the planning stage! Expensive surveys had to be undertaken and the impact on environment was evaluated thoroughly; this was under the previous, leftist government, and the ruling party knew that, to keep their activists happy, they had to do things properly and foresee all the possible "green" attacks.
Then the contracts were signed, and at the same time, the government changed; to clear his stance on conflicts of interest, Berlusconi appointed as "Minister for Infrastructure" an engineer, Claudio Lunardi, whose company was deeply involved with the Alta Velocita' project. (that's like appointing an oilman to a task-force for energy! oh, wait...)

Costs kept going up and up, of course; to be fair to Lunardi, his company was perfectly on schedule. For example, while excavating the Appenini mountains between Tuscany and Emilia, they had to pick up the slack from companies at the other end of the tunnels. They planned to complete the project while Silvio was still in government, what a triumph that would have been! But then something happened, and one of the building company failed. They simply left the sites as they were and went home. I believe it took 6 months to sort out the mess and find a replacement. And costs, of course, went up again. But Lunardi had total confidence from Berlusconi, so...

Then, we have the fresh problems in Piedmont. As it's mentioned  in the original post, Alta Velocita' was planned to help the Turin bid for the Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, they were a bit behind in that area, and started to excavate certain traits only last autumn. The project was now almost a decade-old, all the  plans had been checked and double-checked and triple-checked by all the previous governments and bureaucrats, everyone knew that it was going to start any minute now... and people rioted. Why?
It probably was a politically motivated move form local councils that felt left out of the pork barrel, helped by external "green" extremists that love a good fight only when it's totally useless. They even assaulted the olympic torch-bearer, and the torch was then extinsguished for safety reasons, to the shame of an otherwise very efficient organisation.  In the end, I believe (as I wasn't there anymore, I can't be sure on this) the councils were more or less bought off by the Piedmont regional assembly, for which the Olympics are extremely important, and the work is being carried out as planned.