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Just a nitpick: there actually are two subway lines in Rome too. They're building the third one and yes, it's incredibly complicated because you can't dig a hole anywhere in Rome without finding something of historical relevance :)

Could they not just go deep enough to avoid all that?

That's something I often wondered about, but I'm pretty sure there will be some reasons why it's not feasible... I also think that the biggest problems are the stations.

Subway lines need stations, ventilation and often big shafts to build the tunnels from.

The lines are deep enough, with tunnelling, to avoid historical layers; mainly it's the stations that end up with archaeology.

It's the same case in Warsaw. They earthier find some medieval remains, massive graves from WW2 or a bomb.

I read in Bloomberg it's 20% more expensive to build a building in London than NY.

Same happened during the construction of the Athens metro. Now many of the stations are small musems.

this is so delightful :)