A lunchtime visit to the local hobby shop (Tacoma Trains for those of you in the Seattle/Tacoma area) solved the problem. His prices are more reasonable than the place I visited this weekend.
He sells the R1 curves and foot long straights for $4.99 per section, with a 10% discount per case. Adding sales tax pretty much cancels out the per case discount, and you're back to about $5 per section, out the door, in my hands today. Even if the online stuff ends up being about $4 per piece I spent maybe $20 more on the two boxes of track to support my local hobby shop. It was probably even less than that, depending on what the online places charge for shipping (and this stuff is heavy, I didn't realize just how heavy until he handed me the boxes.
Why spend more at the local hobby shop? A couple reasons.
The obvious one is the ability to get the stuff right now. This is a project for next weekend, so it's nice to know I'll have the track on hand. This time of year who knows how quickly the shipping would go, and if you spring for overnight or second day shipping, well there goes any money you might have saved.
As for supporting the local guy, I like the ability to go to his shop and look at what I'm buying. I stop by once a month or so and browse the HO rolling stock, and usually find something of interest.
He has a surprisingly good selection of the various bits and pieces of LGB track I'll need for the kidney bean shaped holiday layout I've got planned for around the tree. Being able to go back get that one extra piece of track I overlooked, if needed, is really nice. He also stocks rail joiners, connectors, that sort of stuff. He also has plenty of LGB rolling stock as well.