Delusion and Deception in Megaproject Cost Estimates

Link to 'Atlantic Cities'

" In 2002, Flyvbjerg (of Oxford University’s Saïd School of Business) [published] a study showing that large-scale infrastructure projects routinely exceed initial estimates and timelines, and, in the case of transit schemes, frequently over-estimate anticipated ridership. His inventory of 258 examples, most completed in the late 1980s and 1990s, includes the Chunnel and the Sydney Opera House, both notorious debacles.

Ridership: not a recent problem in London;
new services quickly become saturated

"... While there’s been some improvement in risk assessment over the past decade, transit projects still tend to be thrown off budget by factors that the project team can’t control, including the addition of new stations, route alignment changes, and political change."