What’s Taking So Long? Identifying the Underlying Causes of Delays in Planning Transportation Megaprojects in the United States

Abstract

By integrating literature on transportation planning, megaprojects, and public choice theory, this article identifies the following eight factors that can cause delays in planning transportation megaprojects in the United States: impacts to neighborhoods and the environment, laws and regulations relating to the environment and planning, insufficient funding, changes in scope and design of a project, government bureaucracies and conflict between agencies, overly optimistic expectations, uncertainty involved in identifying the best alternative, and the absence of an effective public sector champion.