carwreck.com: around Boston harbor...

Here is an amazing Boston.com article about the cost overruns in the Central Artery Project. It totally points the finger at Bechtel one of the main engineering firms handling the planning and management of the Big Dig.

The craziest part about all that is that Bechtel was never required to refund any of the costs created by the overruns. In fact, they made money every time a mistake that they made required additional work to be done. In all my experience doing contracts, when you screw up and cost the client additional money, there are penalties. In this situation, every screwup they made cost them nothing and made them millions. That seems like a major flaw in the system.