This is my bread and butter; and honestly, the entire issue is engineering (or lack thereof). That is not that you have bad engineering, but more the oversight into the level of engineering is where things fall over. The article notes specific example of "low-bid" contractors demanding change notices. That isn't a function of a low bid contractor, that is an issue with the specifications and quality of engineering they are building too. A lot of the issues the US faces are related to soil conditions! Nowhere in the article is there a note that soil conditions are the biggest factor in tunneling costs. When we back up a little too, large infrastructure in the US is very political. The government doesn't deal with "project management" to ensure a project comes in on time and budget, they deal with yearly budget allocations - thats it! So the entire management ethos on public works is so drastically different you can't even compare. Anyway, stoked to see the discussion about construction here.