From high-speed rail to the Olympics, why do big projects go wrong?

have big construction projects that become a byword for ineptitude. In America the “Big Dig”, a highway project that snarled up the centre of Boston for years, came in five times over its initial budget. The stadium built for the Montreal Olympics in 1976 was unaffectionately known as the “Big Owe” after costs overran massively; the debts from the games were paid off only 30 years later. Even the Germans get megaprojects wrong. Ground was broken at Brandenburg Airport in Berlin in 2006, and the first flights took off in 2020, ten years later than scheduled. The embarrassment caused by Britain’s biggest construction project is set to last for many years yet. A plan to build a high-speed railway, called 2, down the spine of England was approved by the government in 2012. This month came confirmation of another in a long series of delays. Now the first passengers will only get on board some time in the 2030s, if they are lucky. Costs have doubled from their initial estimate; bits of the route have been lopped off; and the trains will not zip along as quickly as originally planned.