Transportation takes too long: Slate asks: Should it take decades to build a subway? It’s too easy to slow down urban mass transit improvements. Here’s how to fix the system.

1. Bureaucracy
2. Lack of funding
3. Politics
4. Existing infrastructure
5. Mismanagement
6. Addiction to cars
7. Basic fairness

This nicely complements my Transportation costs too much series. This applies to roads and other infrastructure as well as subways. The Americans entered World War II in December of 1941. By August of 1945, three and a half years later, the war was over. While it is easier to destroy than create, think about all that had to be created to destroy so efficiently. The Inter-County Connector recently opened in Maryland. Plans for it dated to the 1950s, and the alignment to the 1960s.