18 hours ago
- Planning times for US infrastructure projects have not significantly increased compared to historic averages, with average planning around 10 years across most periods.
- Construction times for US bridges fell from the 1900s to the 1960s, then rose, with post-1980 bridges taking over twice as long to build as mid-20th century bridges.
- Most modern bridges are replacements for existing ones, which tend to be built faster due to public urgency, unlike entirely new bridges.
- There is little correlation between planning duration and construction duration; long-planned bridges can be built quickly and vice versa.
- Historical examples like the Bear Mountain Bridge (54 years of planning) show that long planning timelines are not a modern phenomenon.
- Organizational urgency, rather than bureaucratic processes, may be key to speeding up infrastructure projects in the US.