Bottom Line: US infrastructure costs are dramatically higher than Europe - often 10-30 times more expensive for transit projects, with subway construction in NYC costing $3.2 billion per kilometer compared to just $100 million per kilometer in cities like Madrid.
Kinda ironic that Europe is seen as the very definition of bureaucracy and red tape by many Americans, when this sort of data shows it's actually quite efficient
Point 9 is funny (although not funny in reality)... Americans have NIH syndrome basically.
I suppose only once the boomers die out will we have a chance of course correcting incuriosity. I actually remember many years ago some of the justices at the supreme court got real uppity when examples were brought up from other countries (forgive me i forget the case name).
https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-c...
And if one asks Claude.ai , one gets this:
Bottom Line: US infrastructure costs are dramatically higher than Europe - often 10-30 times more expensive for transit projects, with subway construction in NYC costing $3.2 billion per kilometer compared to just $100 million per kilometer in cities like Madrid.