The Empire Statue Building was, for its time, monumental. The New York landmark may not be such a big deal these days, but its construction history in often invoked as a sign that we’ve lost the capacity to do big stuff.

After all, the iconic skyscraper’s builders brought the project to completion $19 million under budget, 12 days ahead of schedule, and in just over a year.

At the height of the depression.

By contrast, California’s High-Speed Rail project – designed to ultimately link San Diego with Sacramento – was authorized in 2008. Construction on Phase 1 didn’t being until 2015. As of now, $11.2 billion has been spent without a single train having left a single station. The total budget was originally in the $33-40 billion range, although it’s now anticipated to run past $128 billion. And no one’s expecting project completion any time in the next decade.

Closer to home, we can compare the original 7.4 kilometer Yonge Line of Toronto’s subway system (fully-functional by 1954 after just five years’ work) with its grandson, the Eglinton Crosstown LRT. The Eglinton line was announced in 2007, work began in 2011 and, 13 years later, completion is still nowhere in sight. Since I live just a few blocks from what might one day become an LRT station, I’ll be sure to let you know if anything changes.

In the grand scheme of things, North America might not even have it so bad. Lately, everyone (and by “everyone” I mean everyone besides my wife, children, or even a single person I have ever met) has been buzzing about a 17,000-word article called “Foundations: Why Britain Has Stagnated”. I strongly encourage you to read the whole thing have ChatGPT summarize it for you.

The main takeaway from Foundations is that the UK’s excessive regulations, high energy and labour costs, bureaucratic delays, and outdated tax incentives led to an application process requiring 360,000 pages and nearly £300 million for the Lower Thames Crossing project before any work was even approved!

The rot that lies behind Britain’s paralysis has been building since the 1990’s, through both Conservative and Labour governments.

But things might not be so bad here at home. For one thing, we probably don’t have a regulatory bureaucracy that’s quite so extreme as Britain’s. I’m aware of nothing in Canada that’s analogous to the UK’s “nutrient neutrality” requirements.

And while our energy costs are certainly not cheap, they’re a whole lot better here than in the UK. Commercial electricity, for instance, costs an average of USD 0.117 per kWh in Canada, far below the USD 0.485 per kWh they’re paying in the UK. And the cost of natural gas for home heating in Canada (USD 0.038 per kWh) isn’t even close to what they shell out across the pond (USD 0.092 per kWh).

Which might at least partially explain why, despite all the delays, cost overruns, and unexpected service failures involved, some major infrastructure projects have reached a (broadly) happy conclusion.

For every expensive failure (like the Eglinton Crosstown LRT or the Ottawa Confederation Line), there have also been successes (like Confederation Bridge and Vancouver’s Canada Line). Things are far from perfect, but it’s not all doom and gloom either.

The Foundations article ends on a positive note:

We believe that Britain can enjoy such a renewal once more. To do so, it need simply remove the barriers that stop the private sector from doing what it already wants to do: build homes, bridges, tunnels, roads, trams, railways, nuclear power plants, grid connections, prisons, aqueducts, reservoirs, and more.

Removing barriers. Or even better, resisting the erection of new barriers before they’re in place. We can always hope.