That is typical for Switzerland, and it is because for the Swiss, "planning is 50% of the work". They invest the time up-front in planning and thinking about how whatever it is they are doing is going to work, and once they either ran proof of concept tests or thought it through, they set the machinery in motion. There will even be a clearly documented process for modelling the process, and a process for getting the logistics squared away! It's such a great way to work, I'm a big fan of this work methodology, because it is oriented towards reaping long term profits with interest, be those profits with interest financial or intellectual.

I'd wager that there's another reason why big projects are usually pretty successful in Switzerland; time - and budget wise:

Political legitimacy, signed off by popular referendum.

When you look north to our German neighbors, with a comparable work ethos and certainly a fair understanding of engineering you see projects go south again and again. Be it Stuttgart 21 (the new train station), or that horrible mess that is the airport Berlin Brandenburg.

Such projects usually require popular support via referendum in Switzerland. That means that if it is voted through this implies that the necessary capital investments are spoken for and that the project is legitimized via public support.

This also means that if the government changes they can't just massage budget positions and siphon funds of such projects for political expedience, or other reasons.

Legitimacy also avoids public resistance against the projects as it happened in Stuttgart and which almost killed the project (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuttgart_21#Debate_and_opposi...).

That's not to say that all big projects in Switzerland work like a charm. But political legimacy and honest budgeting that comes with it seem major factors that such projects are succesful more often than not.

> I'd wager that there's another reason why big projects are usually pretty successful in Switzerland; time - and budget wise:

> Political legitimacy, signed off by popular referendum.

Yes, that helps them, a lot. However, that is effect. The root cause of political legitimacy is deeply ingrained in their culture, and it is compromise and consensus seeking, even when divided on an issue. That was a very humbling and instructive experience.

> if the government changes

So here's the thing to understand about Swiss government: It never changes. Well at least its executive branch doesn't. Bear with me for a moment.

Swiss government (federal, cantonal and communal) differs from the American model in three ways:

* Power is not concentrated in a single person, but a council (e.g. 7 members on federal level). Decisions (as far as they can go before involving parliament) are made by secret votes inside the council and carried through as a single entity. Council members are supposed to never publicly talk about their individual opinions, only what the council represents as a whole. They're not supposed to be politicians anymore, they're acting much more like a board of directors.

* There's no such thing as a government / opposition split in Switzerland. In theory it could happen, but it never plays out this way. Instead, the four largest parties present their council candidates to the national assembly, who then vote for them one after the other. If a candidate doesn't please them the opposing parties form coalitions to vote in a counter candidate from the same party. That's the most spectacle we get. So even a socialist will vote for conservative council members - because the conservative party will do the same in return. It's a political truce that works like this since 67 years [1].

* Council members, while not immune to being 'deelected', in practise tend to stay in office for as long as they want. While there is an election cycle it doesn't really matter the way it plays out.

All of this together creates tremendous stability in the Swiss political system. The main instability comes from people's initiatives, which I tend to see as a good thing, since that at least reflects the viewpoint of the majority.

Really, sometimes I wonder how they came up with such a well oiled system in 1848. Maybe it helped being able to learn from the first gen. modern Republics and their mistakes (USA and France).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_formula

It's interesting because I feel like 20 years ago that Germany was in the same vein as the swiss, things were completed on time and on budget, always. I don't know what's changed.

I wonder as well. I haven't been on an on-time train in Germany in the past year and a half.

Really there's a referendum on all big projects? Is this governed by a certain threshold i.e above amount X it gets put to referendum? That's pretty awesome if so. In the US this done in a back room away from public view it has various names - pork barrel politics, horse trading, etc. And such allocations are often tacked onto other legislation that might have nothing to do with the project.

There are different forms.

On a cantonal level there is (among others) a "finance referendum". This may be mandatory or optional depending on the canton. Optional means the project is only actually put to a referendum if an eligible group demands it. An eligible group may be a political party, a certain number of voters, certain interest groups, etc.

For example in the Canton of Zürich there is an optional referendum on decisions of the Cantonal Council on new non-recurrent expenditure of more than 6 million francs or new recurrent annual expenditures of more than 600'000 francs. To actually put such a decision to a referendum requires either 3000 voters (public referendum), 12 municipalities, the city of Zürich or the city of Winterthur (municipal referendum), or 45 Cantonal Council members (cantonal referendum).

On a federal level there is no "finance referendum". It has been proposed, but most political parties are against it since it could hinder the Federal Council in its freedom of action and delay or even block important investments. But there's a mandatory referendum for all constitutional changes and certain other things like joining supranational communities etc. and a optional referendum for all federal laws and certain other things like international treaties etc. The optional referendum requires 50'000 voters (or eight cantons, but this only actually happened once).

Switzerland has an interesting political system: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland

"Switzerland's voting system is unique among modern democratic nations in that Switzerland practices direct democracy in parallel with representative democracy. That's why the Swiss system is called semi-direct democracy.[1] Direct democracy allows any citizen to challenge any law approved by the parliament or, at any time, propose a modification of the federal Constitution.

...

Approximately four times a year, voting occurs over various issues; these include both initiatives and referendums, where policies are directly voted on by people, and elections, where the populace votes for officials. "

They both still do rail a lot cheaper, faster, and better than the US :-/

Having a GDP/capita nearly double that of Germany probably helps too.

Even in Switzerland it sometimes goes wrong. One interesting example is the bridge in Laufenburg. Construction was started on both the German and the Swiss side. In the end the sides didn't match up (Number 7 on http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-27509559).

The German Wikipedia says Swiss engineers were at fault (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hochrheinbrücke#Konstruktionsf...)

This is incredibly disrespectful to the professionals in other parts of the developed world who do infrastructure or construction related work. Every mega project (and most mid sized projects) invests significant money and time in planning and design and also has defined work flows/design processes.

I'd be interested to see any breakdown of costs or schedule that show "planning" as being 50% of the the work.

It seems a bit harsh to me to call this "incredibly disrespectful". I doubt that "incredible disrespect" was intended, nor is it inherent to the statement.

What I think you mean is that the grandparent comment strikes you personally as not recognising the efforts of other engineers around the world, and you wish it did. I think that would be a less incendiary and aggressive way to get your point across, and, in most places, more likely to get a useful response.

Thank you for the comment but your recommendation is unnecessary - from reading your post it is clear that the major components of my complaint were understood without issue.

Disrespect occurs with or without intent. The original poster's comment can only be construed in one way: the Swiss do things this way, it is better, and therefore everybody else does it wrong. The claim (50% spent on planning) is clearly and demonstrably wrong. As someone who works in the tunneling industry I take personal offense to the implication that we (Americans, British, Spanish, Italian, Chinese, everyone not Swiss) don't "invest the time up-front in planning and thinking" before we "set the machinery in motion" and that we have a work methodology that isn't "oriented towards reaping long term profits with interest".

> The original poster's comment can only be construed in one way: the Swiss do things this way, it is better, and therefore everybody else does it wrong. The claim (50% spent on planning) is clearly and demonstrably wrong.

That is correct, in my experience the Swiss way is the best way, and I have yet to work in another country (and I'm international) where they do it better or with more planning and forethought. The only other mentality which comes close to that is that of Japanese. This is obviously anecdotal, but to me it is perfectly understandable why the Swiss managed to do it within time and budget constraints. Everywhere else I've worked, and what I've seen, it was not as good.

I've put the Swiss saying that planning is 50% of the work to the test, and have had great results with it. Again this is anecdotal, but to me, it confirms that their way of thinking is correct, and I appreciate it.

By the way, the article in German mentions multiple times that certain challenges which were met were expected because they were identified during the planning and preparation stage.

The opinion being raised here is that the overall system the Swiss are using provides better results than those others are using. It's not necessarily that others don't put forth effort (despite the language), but that the Swiss yield the kind of results that others don't.

Most people aren't judged by effort. They're judged by results.

Another way of putting it: the proof of the engineering is in the working.

> the Swiss yield the kind of results that others don't.

Correct.

> Most people aren't judged by effort. They're judged by results.

Again, correct. And they deliver results, consistently.

The only place where they don't is team sports, but again that has a logical reason behind it, which is that they are very private and individual people, everyone for themselves (not that they don't try, it just doesn't work out). But when it comes to planning, they could very well teach others how it's done, because they excel at it. There is something to learn from every nation, planning and organization is one thing that one can learn from the Swiss.

The opinion being raised here is not supported by evidence. The only testable claim that can be evaluated in the original poster's comment is that, in the Swiss system, planning is 50% of the work. I ask specifically for any breakdown of cost or schedule, the two metrics by which all public work is judged, where planning occupies 50% of the work.

Simply looking at an isolated example of a project that was on schedule and under budget (for varying definitions of schedule and budget, but that's how it goes in construction - the Seattle SR 99 replacement tunnel project along with the Seawall replacement is currently "on schedule" if you believe the management of those projects) does not provide the data to back up the poster's statement. Without the data we cannot adequately make the determination if the "Swiss system" described by the poster is better than any other system.

There is a saying in the poker community: don't be results oriented.

I don't want infrastructure engineering to be like poker, and neither should you. The only way in which they are alike is that there is a strong possibility of someone getting killed if you cheat.

I 100% want engineering to be like poker. I say that as a registered professional engineer with many friends on crews currently standing in holes that I have designed.

Understand what I mean when I say "like poker": the poker mindset is a very analytical, statistically oriented approach. The best players never make a bet/call/fold without some form of logical basis for their plays. They have an internal model that tells them "this play will succeed 50% of the time and I stand to win 3x my risked value and so it is profitable". Similarly in engineering, no decision should be made without an internal model where risk can be evaluated - "this structure will fail 5% of the time and kill somebody but it costs $10,000,000 to get more out of it and so it is not profitable".

Engineering - especially tunneling - is a gamble. You cannot design away every risk. All we can do is show up with our belts and suspenders on and hope our pants don't fall down when we're running out of the hole.

If we set aside the 50% part as non-literal, OP described planning, not designing. Planning includes risk analysis and mitigation. And even in designing we include risk mitigation and elimination. We put in safety factors (component must be able to support 3x target weight, and such).

Everything else you described about risk is not unique to poker. In engineering, particularly major projects with real safety concerns, it's risk analysis. This component has a 4% chance of failing in this way, so add redundancy to mitigate it. Put in 10 sensors instead of 4, and require a consensus algorithm to reduce the risks from sensor failure or misreporting.

In engineering we do gamble, on a lot of things. But it's not a pure gamble, we aren't just throwing dice. We plan, prepare, rehearse, and execute.

We agree with each other. The other poster is the one who did not recognize the similarities between a poker mindset and an engineering mindset. I am well aware of how risk mitigation, planning, and safety factors roll themselves into engineering.

And a bit of a nitpick, but we are just throwing dice. The entire idea of a safety factor is an abstraction to get away from statistics which is why it has been almost completely replaced in structural engineering with LRFD which is based on statistical analyses of component/system failures.

> Engineering - especially tunneling - is a gamble.

I'm a civil engineer, and I do structural design work for a living.

If you're not trolling and you do mean what you've been saying, you're being very disingenuous and in the process proving to be true and perfectly valid all comments regarding the virtues of the swiss system in contrast with the typical engineering work around the world, the one you so vocally identify yourself with.

Engineering is not poker. It never was. Only bad engineering is like poker, and it shows in their work. You're confusing basic aspects of reliability analysis (the "this structure will fail 5% of the time" comment) with being poker. European structural design standards dictate that the lower failure probability of an engineering work, for its entire design working life, is around 0,05%. This is not poker.

As you've mentioned, the design process is centered on risk analysis and balances the economic impact of safeguarding against risk scenarios, but this is entirely immaterial for the discussion. The discussion is about planning, and the lack thereof. All projects are planned to an extent, but the point is that planning is often insufficient in the sense that important variables are left unknown until breaking ground for any number of reasons, one of which is this mentality that its unacceptable to spend much on risk assessment ("why spend money on non-destructive tests to infer the geotechnical profile and properties of each stratum in the preliminary design stage if we're boring a hole in there and eventually we'll reach that point ourselves?").

Unknowingly or not, you've supported this observation throughout all this discussion by arguing in favor of the virtues of handling a civil engineer project like "poker", and tolerating and accepting the occurrence of surprises associated with unacceptably high risk probabilities that go way up to 5%. This is precisely the problem everyone is pointing out and you've tried to deny but ended up supporting. This is the sole responsible for the typical cost overruns in civil engineering projects, and you inadvertently demonstrated why sadly this still rings true up to this day.

HN is not a safe space. Disagree fine, but please don't try to outlaw speech because it's "disrespectful".

I completely agree, HN is not a safe space. That is why I feel justified in blatantly calling out a comment I see as disrespectful. I didn't try to "outlaw" his comment - I upvoted the comment, as I upvote any comment I feel encourages or needs discussion.

> I upvoted the comment, as I upvote any comment I feel encourages or needs discussion.

And for that kind of thinking alone, I upvote this comment of yours. Kudos and respect to you.

I too upvoted this. Your other posts I didn't touch, either because I don't feel qualified to judge them or because I didn't agree.

As others I found you somewhat incendiary but I am still surprised by the massive downvoting you seem to have experienced :-/

Don't try to outlaw speech because it's disrespectful, and don't try to outlaw dissent because it's critical of disrespectfulness. Goes both ways.

Focusing on the "50% planning" comment is wrong, and it's likely an exaggeration. What you should be asking is evidence of Swiss public works projects meeting time & budget constraints vs. projects in other countries, which is the key takeaway here.

If you are referring to my comment, I didn't mean just construction, I mean this is how the Swiss work in general. They always plan ahead and think long term in pretty much everything they undertake. It's their mentality, and I've learned to respect it and cherish it, a lot.

By praising something you're implicitly insulting everything else?

I guess someone, somewhere, somehow, could be insulted (people, what can one do?) For example, any time in my decades of work experience I've had anything to do with the English, it was just pressure, pressure, pressure, do it quick, quick, quick! It needs done yesterday. What do we have to do to get this done already!?! PANIC oh my if this isn't done IMMEDIATELY the world will end!!! Implied threats. Passive-aggressive tactic. Blustering. Bluffing.

But never any plan, never any specification, never anything except maybe a lonely Powerpoint presentation promising castles in the sky. Process? No process, that takes too long. And if there anything resembling a process, it's never formally documented, never enforced, and as soon as the next crisis breaks out, purposely disregarded. "Capability maturity model? Yeah, no, we obviously have no time for that..."

It's been both frustrating and fascinating watching it all these years: always panic, always guerilla style work mode, always no plan whatsoever, always pandemonium, always chaos. Completely the opposite of the Swiss or the Japanese. Different companies, different people, but with the English always the same modus operandi. And then they say that stereotypes are bad and not true at all. I guess at least I appreciate that they are consistent in being chaotic and disorganized (;-))

People are equal, cultures are not.

A much shorter tunnel, but with two new underground train stations, is being built under Stockholm, Sweden.[1] It is about 1/6 of the Swiss budget (about $2 billion). It will be completed on budget and slightly ahead of time this year.[2] So it can be done.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_City_Line

[2] in Swedish. http://framtidensinfrastruktur.se/artikel/snart-fardigbyggt-...

But most often, even in Sweden, it is not. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallands%C3%A5s_Tunnel

Indeed projects in Sweden run över budget too. I was saying "it can be done" not that it is always successful. Other recent successes:

Norra länken 2.6 Bn SEK under budget (part of circle road around Stockholm). [1][2] Arlandabanan (train service to Stockholm AirPort), on time and on budget. [3]

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norra_länken

[2] https://sv.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norra_länken

[3] https://www.arlandaexpress.com/default.aspx?page=88&id=34

You can't compare those two projects.

Clearly you can... Let's see:

Underground?: Yes, Yes

Budget: $2bn, $12bn (or whatever)

On-time?: Yes, Yes

Is a tunnel?: No, Yes

...

> Clearly you can... Let's see:

One involves carving a 150km tunnel through a granite massif which is the Alps in a scale that never before was done in history of mankind, the other involves drilling a tunnel through alluvium and sedimentary deposits pretty much like any medium-scale tunneling work.

You could apply this checklist to a sewage system also.

Wouldn't you wany a sewage system to be on time?

There is a bit on wikipedia[1] (more in the german version).

The project wasn't with out Problems but because of such strict planning they could be solved. For example one of the TBM's got stuck for months, another issues such as sub contractors delivering fraudulent materials also had to be dealt with. [2]

Although the Swiss part went well there are issues with the connection in Germany and Italy. Some projects in Italy haven't even started yet and one part Switzerland is now paying for just to get the trains through.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel [2] http://www.tagesanzeiger.ch/wissen/natur/was-die-tunnelbauer...

It's amazing how hot it is in some places underground, up to 44C. Wow.

At least the workers had air conditioning: http://interaktiv.tagesanzeiger.ch/2016/gotthard-system/

Security of the workers was strictly controlled. Working temperature for example was not allowed to exceed 28°C, which was achieved through cooling installations.

I am curious that if we do get to Mars can we simply dig down or go under a mountain for warmth? You would not need a full on tunnel, just a system similar to geothermal heating

I was curious, too, and found this:

http://cseligman.com/text/planets/magnetism.htm

The author estimates Mars' core temperature to be 5000-7000F, compared to an estimate of around 14000F for Earth. Obviously, the planets' respective compositions are different, so I'm not sure if one could just scale a temperature estimate linearly---but what the heck, this is the Internet and no one's grading me, right? ;)

So the core temperature ratio is 5/14, and the size ratio is 1/3, so:

  (5/14) * (1/3) * 44F = ~5F

That comports with the current consensus regarding subsurface water, because scientists think that it's likely frozen or perhaps a brine (which would depress the solution's freezing point below that of pure water).

Tunneling is probably a good idea anyway, because the surrounding rock will protect and insulate the habitat even if the subsurface temperatures aren't enough to warm it.

Edited: Oh for God's sake, I confused degrees Fahrenheit with degrees Celsius.

For long term stays we'd need to dig underground dwellings on Mars anyways, though not nearly as deep, as the radiation that gets through its atmosphere will be very harmful to anyone living on the surface for multi year time spans.

That's just the Earth's internal heater with a nice insulating blanket on top of it.

I don't read German so maybe this is covered in your article but what does strict planning have to do with getting a TBM unstuck or fraudulent materials? Wouldn't these issues point towards a lack of planning/quality control?

> Wouldn't these issues point towards a lack of planning/quality control?

If your car engine breaks down you did a bad route planning?

There are things that can't be planned for.

One of the major problems detected was the fact that they had to drill through dolostone, which is a huge technological challenge. When mixed with water it results in a soupy mixture, which is almost impossible to work with in drilling a tunnel.

The did exploration drillings in 1993, but engineers where still pretty worried.

It was only in 2008 that the engineers lost the last of their concerns.

Such a huge project comes with technical uncertainties. What do you want to do about it?

Well if they caught it then there was quality control after all, wasn't there?

As I note, I can't read German so I don't know what or when the fraudulent materials were caught. If they weren't caught until they were installed then no, there wasn't proper quality control.

My more important question is how does catching fraudulent materials have anything to do with strict planning?

Controls are built into the process from the onset.

There's (usually) a very good separation between the political and technical aspects of the project.

You can take the Porta Alpina dise-project as an example (which wanted an underground station midway through the tunnel connecting to ski resorts).

Despite strong political lobbying, the project was deemed uneconomical and canceled.

If you compare it with the new span of the SF Bay Bridge, the difference is clear: there was far less political involvement in the technical details of the project in the Swiss case.

"... delivered on time and within budget ..."

So for a project of this scale and timeline, they managed to use up exactly all the budget... (I assume it would say under/over budget if it was a significant amount off).

What are the odds of predicting correctly the cost of a 20 year project especially given the volatility of markets over the last 20 years?

I suspect either some corners were cut, or some contractors started padding out the bills towards the end...

"delivered on time"

It's even better. They are about one year ahead of schedule.

Ahead of schedule based on an adjusted schedule during construction. They are slightly behind the originally planned schedule (a couple years).

Obviously this is still a very well executed project overall.

Well obviously it's part of the Requirement Engineering process to adjust the schedule when the requirements change.

I don’t think there is anything wrong with changing the schedule. Anything else would be quite dumb and probably just delusional. Perfectly predicting the future is not possible and if honest mistakes or simply unknowns lead to this then that’s just normal.

However, here “ahead of schedule” is used as a, well, I guess compliment and for that it’s important to know the context. That they adjusted the schedule is obviously not at all a problem and, as I said, for a project this big the couple years it took longer aren’t really that relevant even.

And, more often than not, these requirement changes are used as excuses for extending the deadline so that project ends up being done "on time". I've worked in management on multi-year waterfall projects and this is how this game is played.

It would be fun to see an "agile" tunnel project.

"This rock is too solid to drill through with our machines!" – "Ok, for now let's just drill around it and make it an underground rollercoaster instead of a railway, we can get back to the original design later!"

This actually happened in St. Petersburg, when they ran into difficulties tunneling under the river on Line 2. They ended up going under the difficult section, and now there's a 6% downgrade on that section of the line, which is pretty much a rollercoaster by subway train standards.

That's not agile, that's a pivot :)

Not in this case, as the train is specified to go at 250 km/h, which means that the tunnel had to be pretty straight, or else the train might derail at that speed.

Which would make it an even more fun roller coaster!

Just like the UK 2012 Olympics. It came in under budget. Despite the budget quadrupling since the project was started.

There's a million reasons to love Switzerland, and now there's 57km more of it. This is amazing.

Once the new Berlin airport is finished in about 5-10 years, I'll fly down there to celebrate.

> Once the new Berlin airport is finished in about 5-10 years, I'll fly down there to celebrate.

Rather if the new Berlin airport is ever finished...

In other words: If you want to celebrate, rather fly down to Berlin now and celebrate the opening of the Gotthard tunnel in Berlin.

I know, I live there ;)

To all you western europeans complaining: come down to Brazil, and I'll take you on a tour of our "Top Ten Most Abandoned-Halfway Billion Dollar Government Works" ;-)

Oh, and just to give an example, the construction of one of our nuclear power plants began in 1984 but was halted in 1986, only to begin where it left off in 2010, to be finished in 2015. Wait, now it is in 2016. Nope, just checked, it should be in 2018. All the while, the cost to maintain the stuff that was already bought or built is around 20 million a year, since 1986. So yeah, this one is on our TOP TEN list. This little swiss tunnel is not.

Well construction of the Cologne Cathedral started in 1248 and was halted in 1473, only to begin where it left off in 1842 and was eventually completed in 1880 - so don't give up hope ;)

The should have checked in with the Byzantians, the Hagia Sofia was finished in 6 years and remained the largest Cathedral for almost 1000 years.

In Spain the Sagrada Família cathedral has been under construction for 134 years and has another 30 to go.

And it was totally worth the little wait!

Scotland's latest bridge coming in under budget and on time even:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensferry_Crossing

Looks like you spoke to soon! Five month delay..

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-edinburgh-east-fife-36...

That almost makes up for the over-spends on the Edinburgh trams, and the Scottish Parliament!

(Speaking as an Edinburgh bloke who lived through the significant disruption down Leith Walk for a tramline that was never built; I'm not bitter. Though nowadays I live abroad. In a city with multiple tram-lines.)

This is what I noticed most too; then I wondered how it compares with Crossrail. (Obviously I imagine tunneling under London is vastly different than under a mountain.)

Crossrail is also ahead of schedule and under budget (taking into account an explicit decision to delay it for a year but allow them to reduce the original budget by 1bn). They've done it by ruthlessly resisting scope creep. The flipside of that is that things added on later will end up costing more overall (e.g. adding the station at Old Oak Common and the connection to the WCML to relieve capacity while Euston is rebuilt for HS2) than if they were done as part of Crossrail.

Only in Europe maybe. The Millau Viaduct (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millau_Viaduct) was also on time and on budget, despite needing a few groundbreaking advances...

Without public money even...

The highest bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidu_River_Bridge looks so unreal it looks like it was photoshopped over the valley. Sorry for OT. Back to work all of you!

The Swiss also have a railway inside the Eiger.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jungfrau_railway

In parts you would rather have to give credits to the New Austrian Tunnelling method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Austrian_Tunnelling_method

just to be fair, during the NEAT project the budget has been adjusted several times.

That is just plain wrong. The project was delayed multiple times and cost a few billions more than estimated. It was on time and budget because the time and budget were adjusted constantly.

The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was delivered ahead of schedule, and within budget. 80+ years ago.

And only eleven people died building it!

Only in not so corrupt countries..