Okay. That would probably amount to about 20% to 25% of the overall initial costs. You're probably looking at $4 billion to $5 billion there. You're basically looking at a $15 billion financing requirement.
The critical element that will drive that financing requirement is the degree to which you can demonstrate in a financial prospectus reasonable predictability on revenue flows for that particular enterprise—ideally, revenue flows at a level that would pretty much guarantee some reasonable return to the investors. There are two ways to do that. We have done this in Canada quite successfully with our airport model. You basically have to ensure that the entity has some reasonable assurance of market share. The way we do that in the airport model is that we license the airports, and only certain airports can provide services. So it's not a free and open market. You would have to consider the same sorts of things for a high-speed rail operation.
The second thing you would need to look at would obviously be the marketing studies. Can you reasonably satisfy yourselves that you see a traffic base and a traffic growth that would get you there? That's exactly what they're looking at in the updates of the studies that are going on now in the corridor.
I must tell you, frankly, that back in the 1990s that was a difficult proposition. We're in a different world today. Look at traffic patterns today, particularly in the corridor, and compare them to 15 years ago. They've increased dramatically, by factors of two or three. While I certainly am not privy to the financial analysis that's going on at the moment, I would suspect that the numbers would look somewhat different.
The last point I would make is that it has not been unusual, with these sorts of projects or with airport evolution or some of the other projects of a similar nature, for the government to look at some short-term guarantees at the front end to reduce some of the early market risk and to attract further private sector investment into the play.
Those are some of the dynamics that need to be considered.