The city has no responsibility to counteroffer, or even to waste any time or money considering the proposal. It's up to Elonrail to make a realistic proposal to the city if he hopes to get approval for his boondoggle.

in the meantime: the region makes money from the project in the process. Based on the submitted financial plan for the Elonrail, it would earn maybe $250,000 a year. It would several tens of millions just to tunnel, not including the hundreds of millions to build the many stations along the way that Elon has proposed, or the millions it would take to build all the carts.