Freakonomics Radio
Here’s Why All Your Projects Are Always Late — and What to Do About It
Whether it’s a giant infrastructure plan or a humble kitchen renovation, it’ll inevitably take way too long and cost way too much. That’s because you suffer from the “planning fallacy.” (You also have an “optimism bias” and a bad case of overconfidence.) But don’t worry: We’ve got the solution.
In 1968, the governor of New York, Nelson Rockefeller, received a proposal he’d commissioned. It addressed the mass transit needs of the New York City area. One centerpiece of the plan was a new subway line that would run from lower Manhattan up the East Side and into the Bronx. It was called the Second Avenue Subway.
Four years later, Rockefeller and New York City Mayor John Lindsay held a ground-breaking ceremony for the Second Avenue Subway. But not long afterward, the project was shelved because of a fiscal crisis. Years later, a new governor, Mario Cuomo, tried to restart it. Once again, the budget would not allow — and back it went on the shelf. By then, the Second Avenue Subway had become a punchline. A New Yorker would promise to pay back a loan “once…
