More importantly, the lighter touch of the state government means rather than do a full-on government build and operate (ala California/Amtrak), they're looking at private build & operations under a long-term lease, with the government providing liability limitations and eminent domain, in return for owning the infrastructure after the lease expires in some decades of operation. This means the builder is subject to market forces: they can only recoup their build costs within the lease window by getting to operations as quickly and efficiently as possible. The incentives are the opposite for government construction: the milk flows during construction, so there's a disincentive to ever finish, and when things go over budget, it almost always means more money, rather than anyone cutting their losses.
To get a sense what a difference this makes, consider that the NYC subway system was built by competing private concerns under the long-term lease model (ala Texas), between 1905 and 1940. In 1940 the system was unified under government control (ala California), and basically the system was frozen in time, with no expansion happening in the 70 years since (see: http://www.diametunim.com/shashi/nyc_subways/).