WHY does everything take longer to finish and cost more than we think it
will?
The Channel Tunnel was supposed to cost 拢2.6 billion. In fact, the
final bill came to 拢15 billion. The Jubilee Line extension to the London
Underground cost 拢3.5 billion, about four times the original estimate.
There are many other examples: the London Eye, the Channel Tunnel rail link.
This is not an exclusively British disease. In 1957, engineers forecast that
the Sydney Opera House would be finished in 1963 at a cost of A$7
million. A scaled-down version costing $102 million finally opened in
1973.…
