upvote
Ask a Norwegian to dig a tunnel and they will turn into a gopher on meth. We are the undisputed champions of tunnels in terms of tunnel density. Show us a piece of rock and we'll put a big hole in it.

However.

Ask a Norwegian to fix a piece of road and you will be staring at a hole in the ground for 4 years while people will take turns leaning on a shovel in that hole while surrounded by at least 4 different categories of supervisor or inspector.

But to inject some realism: if they say 4 years they can probably do it in 5. And it'll take another year or so to fix fuck-ups that in retrospect will look stupid and thoughtless, but which are realistically unavoidable. We'll whine about it. A lot. And each week the whole country will be experts on something new. Like evil-sounding compounds for stopping water ingress or how to insulate wires. And then suddenly it starts working.

reply
The US will take a 3 year project, bid it out as a 10 year project to "save money", and cancel it at year 20 for cost overruns and because it's not projected to be operational until year 30.
reply
I see you've discovered California high speed rail
reply
Stretching a 3 year project to a 10 year project costs way more money. Labor costs go up every year. My state DOT manages to complete their road projects on schedule, even the large ones.

I can think of a handful of projects that turned out like your example, California HSR and some nuclear plants. The vast majority of projects are completed on time.

reply
So just ask Norwegians to dig tunnels around the broken road, duh.
reply
Dig tunnels under the broken roads, then remove the ceiling
reply
> Ask a Norwegian to dig a tunnel and they will turn into a gopher on meth. We are the undisputed champions of tunnels in terms of tunnel density. Show us a piece of rock and we'll put a big hole in it.

You're saying the the general sense from the old germanic language cultures that dwarves and their ilk were somehow Scandanavian is rooted is a well-dug reality?

reply
Norway's rock are not bad to dig in. The rock is hard but we know how to work with it and that same hard means you don't have the safety problems of a collapsing roof to worry about while digging.
reply
Reading the Wikipedia page (including the originally projected end date of 2026), it sounds a bit worse. Probably not Germany bad, but I wouldn't bet on the 4 years either.
reply
not 40 years? seriously ??? (cries in Californian)
reply
I guess one advantage of building a lot of tunnels is you learn how to build tunnels and become able to do it reliably and affordably (at least as affordably as something like tunneling through solid rock can be done).
reply