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NY - NJ Hudson River Tunnel Bites the Dust

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[quote user="Paul_D_North_Jr"] <blockquote> <div><img src="/TRCCS/Themes/trc/images/icon-quote.gif" /> Bucyrus:</div> <div>  I think the point of canceling the tunnel funding is that once large public sector projects start to cost-overrun, there is no way to predict the final cost.  And the more that gets sunk into them, the more leverage the contractors and boosters have to add cost because nobody wants to lose what has already been spent.  So the larger the project, the greater the prospect of the cost spinning out of control with no end in sight as everyone feeds on the project.  </div>   If society could look at a collective need, determine the cost, decide it is worth it, and get it for that price, there would be no problem.  Unfortunately, with public sector projects that is not possible.  The only way to reasonably control the tendency for overrun meltdown is to limit the size of projects that are undertaken.  There is a point where project size reaches a critical mass, and the commitment to fund it is doomed to failure.   If you spent ten-billion dollars, one dollar at a time, you might get no cost overrun.  If you spent it all at once, the overrun may be endless.  I call it feeding the seagulls.        </blockquote> Mr. B., what you posted above has much merit, and may well be the dynamic that's driving much of this soap opera, on both sides.  Certainly the recent history of such projects provides scant comfort. But that still leaves me with a question I asked a couple weeks ago:  How is it that the Swiss can complete their larger and longer tunnel projects without these kinds of shenanigans ? - Paul North.  <div style="clear:both;"></div> [/quote] I don’t know.  Maybe they have a citizenry who are perceptive enough to see through the ploys that naturally develop in service of the fundamental tendency for governments to expand their size and power.  We had mostly that kind of watchful and informed citizenry once.
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