Bent Flyvbjerg, "What You Should Know about Megaprojects, and Why", 2014

I've always felt that politics enters into estimates for estimates for megaprojects. Any realistic estimates would kill the project. Hence you have to have overruns.

Bent feels that Large-scale projects have a calamitous history of cost overrun.

Project Cost Overrun (%)
Troy and Greenfield Railroad, USA (1848) 900%
Excalibur Smart Projectile, USA, Sweden (2015) 650%
Lake Placid Winter Olympics, USA 560%
Medicare transaction system, USA 560%
Verrazano Narrow Bridge, USA 280%
Denver International Airport, USA 200%
Boston’s Big Dig Artery/Tunnel project, USA 220%
Minneapolis Hiawatha light rail line, USA 190%
Boston–New York–Washington Railway, USA 130%
Brooklyn Bridge, USA 100%

I have noticed that many careers seem immune to cost overruns.

Suez Canal, Egypt 1,900%
Scottish Parliament Building, Scotland 1,600%
Sydney Opera House, Australia 1,400%
Montreal Summer Olympics, Canada 1,300%
Concorde Supersonic Aeroplane, UK, France 1,100%
Canadian Firearms Registry, Canada 590
Bank of Norway headquarters, Norway 440
Furka Base Tunnel, Switzerland 300
Panama Canal, Panama 200
Humber Bridge, UK 180
Dublin Port Tunnel, Ireland 160
Montreal Metro Laval extension, Canada 160
Copenhagen Metro, Denmark 150
Great Belt Rail Tunnel, Denmark 120
London Limehouse Road Tunnel, UK 110
Shinkansen Joetsu high-speed rail line, Japan 100
Channel Tunnel, UK, France 80
Karlsruhe–Bretten light rail, Germany 80
London Jubilee Line extension, UK 80
Bangkok Metro, Thailand 70
Mexico City Metroline, Mexico 60
High-speed Rail Line South, The Netherlands 60
Great Belt East Bridge, Denmark 50

It was Richard Nixon's advisor, Roy Cohen, who said 'When finally defeated, declare a victory and move on'.

I think cost overruns are pretty much the same thing Blame it on something, focus on the completion ceremony and move on.

Feinstein in San Francisco refused to acknowledge a deficit,
insisting it was an 'income shortfall'.

Every finds reason to blame someone else and move on to more pleasant topics.

Anyone know the cost and how much was over-budget for the Las Vegas spaghetti bowl renovations? I cannot remember a time they weren't an army of workers and heavy machinery doing something. Often lanes are closed or part of the interchange is completely shut off.

Quote: Wizard

Anyone know the cost and how much was over-budget for the Las Vegas spaghetti bowl renovations? I cannot remember a time they weren't an army of workers and heavy machinery doing something. Often lanes are closed or part of the interchange is completely shut off.

The LVRJ said it would cost 1.5 billion back in 2016. The latest reports say the project cost is "almost one billion", so maybe it was scaled back since 2016?

The last phase is supposed to be the worst, traffic wise, but the new signs are supposed to help in the long run.