I wonder if this was one of those "shovel ready" projects.
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/obama-lesson-s...
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/obama-lesson-s...
http://www.lrl.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Navigatio... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmsted_Locks_and_Dam
At $3B and 20 years in the making, maybe they're just a little more complex than a shovel.
The “in the wet” method was supposed to save time and money and minimize delays, but it did the opposite. By the time the corps realized its folly, it was too late to alter course. The novel construction process and inadequate congressional funding, among other things, have dragged the project past the quarter-century mark."
My own recollection is that the project was nearing the final planning stages in 2008, but the recession wiped out much of the state and local funding that had been earmarked for the project. The project was about to be cancelled, but Federal stimulus funding came to the rescue.
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Work-begins-on-Caldeco...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldecott_Tunnel#Fourth_bore
(Edit: in an earlier version, I claimed that the project was "shovel-ready" in 2008, but since construction didn't start until 2010, I was obviously not correct).
I'm asking because in Switzerland we have just completed two huge infrastructure projects, one for 10B and one for 2B, with hardly any budget problems. Cost of 1km of rail tunnel is at a reasonable 140M (for two ways, one bore each). So we know it's possible, I'm just wondering what's the difference.
Railway bores are gonna be larger (6.2m vs 4.7m) and then you have two bores. They're about the same length too. Bore 4 of the Caldecott is 1033 m.
I'd say not too many cooks, but too many head chefs. From my contact with federal projects there always seems to be too many bosses. Dozens of people/groups think they are the final word on the project. None work with each other. Instead of all sitting in a room to hash things out, project plans are emailed/mailed around. Each then sits on the project for weeks, or months if they feel they need public participation/input. By the time each stakeholder agency does their thing a year has past. Any change then restarts the email chain. European governments seem better at agreeing general concepts and then appointing educated individuals to act as reps. Meetings then move far more quickly.
And the US probably has way more regulation, simply because there is a bigger pot to pay politicians and lobbyists from, and they all need something to do/to promise their voters?
Here's an idea: What if every new piece of law and regulation came with a mandatory expiration date - say 10 years. After that date it must pass the legislator again, at which point a new date is set based on an exponential backoff algorithm. At each new vote I'd expect there to be some evaluation of the effects of that piece of legislation.
Now obviously, you still have the problem of strictly partisan politicians, but if you could even just have 5% of legislators not being corrupted by that it would be enough to swing the majority to one side or the other, based on facts.
An example: There is a regulation stating that federal projects must notify and consult affected native tribes. Fine. That's sounds reasonable. But in practice "affected tribes" has become all tribes. Rather than risk getting it wrong, some feel they must officially inform and consult every tribe in the nation. There is a few weeks delay.
Here is the handbook for that reg. Note that this is not the regulation but a guideline on how to obey it. The reg itself is very simple (It's actually a body of several regs, but they all do basically the same thing). What makes it complicated is all the stuff over and above the wording, the stuff you do more out of fear than legal requirement. That stuff gets published in a *.gov PDF and the next thing you know everyone thinks they have to obey every letter of the PDF. The PDF is now a defacto reg and the cycle begins again.
http://www.achp.gov/pdfs/consultation-with-indian-tribes-han...
The Patriot Act extensions show that the "re-evaluation" step will get skipped. Instead everything gets boiled down to talking points that can be used to attack your political opponents in the next election (so-and-so hates cute puppies! he didn't renew the save-the-cute-puppies act!)
To illustrate, here's a normal sediment:
-----------------
20y
-----------------
100y
----------------
....
here are the alps:
| 10M years | 10.1M years | 12M years | ....
Edit: You can also compare to the other link I posted in a sister comment, about a new tunnel through one of Zurich's hills. That project was actually less expensive per km than the Gotthard base tunnel, so I don't think the rock is the problem.
I do still think that the comment added to the discussion, but I won't talk about d...votes in future.