This article linked from another Josh Barro piece tells you exactly why it's so expensive https://www.city-journal.org/html/fifteen-stories-under-14105.html ht

This article linked from another Josh Barro piece tells you exactly why it's so expensive https://www.city-journal.org/html/fifteen-stories-under-14105.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/fifteen-stories-under-1410... In Britain and France, only the “miners”—or tunnelers—work in unions similar to America’s. Contractors hire other workers largely as they wish. The jobs pay well but not American-construction-union well. In New York, everyone works by the same union rules, which include hourly wages and staffing requirements that can mean 25 workers per tunnel-boring machine, compared with a dozen or so in a nonunion state and as few as five in countries such as Norway.