Why Your Projects Are Always Late — and What to Do About It (Ep. 323 Replay)

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 27 April 2023

⏱️ 43 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey there, it's Stephen Dumbner.
0:03.7	This week we wanted to revisit one of our favorite episodes about a problem that never
0:07.9	seems to go away.
0:09.0	The episode is called Why Your Projects Are Always Late and What To Do About It.
0:14.3	We have updated facts and figures where necessary.
0:17.2	Let us know if you find this episode at all helpful.
0:20.2	We are at RadioatFreakOonomics.com.
0:23.5	As always, thanks for listening.
0:29.3	In 1968, more than 50 years ago, the governor of New York State Nelson Rockefeller received
0:35.4	a proposal that he had commissioned.
0:37.8	It addressed the mass transit needs of the New York City area.
0:41.5	One center piece of the plan was a new subway line that would run from Lower Manhattan
0:45.8	up the east side and into the Bronx.
0:47.8	It was called the Second Avenue Subway.
0:51.1	Four years later, Rockefeller and New York City Mayor John Lindsay held a groundbreaking
0:55.6	ceremony for the Second Avenue Subway, but not long afterward, the project was shelved
1:01.2	because of a fiscal crisis.
1:03.4	Years later, a new governor, Mario Cuomo, tried to restart it, but once again, the budget
1:08.4	would not allow and back it went on the shelf.
1:11.9	By now, the Second Avenue Subway had become a punchline.
1:15.0	New Yorker would promise to pay back alone once the Second Avenue Subway was built.
1:19.7	It came to be known as the most famous thing that's never been built in New York City.
	...

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