Vancouver’s “Second Narrows” bridge was built in the late 50s and completed in 3 years. Midway through the project a major accident killed 19 people. It was the result of an engineering error.

In the mid 90s the bridge name was changed. It is now generally referred to as the “Ironworkers memorial bridge”. Anyone crossing that bridge since is constantly reminded of that engineering error.

“Better safe than sorry” is rising belief.

Once this truism became generally accepted, as it generally is, it has precedent over other considerations. Since “safe” means more than physical safety, practically any human action is subject to exponentially increasing levels of scrutiny. It takes time to come to an agreement that everything is safe. In big projects it takes a lot of time. On bigger projects it might never come.