Post by Juan Alberti

Stuttgart 21’s 2009 financing agreement covered €4.526bn. Its official financing frame is now €11.453bn, and Deutsche Bahn representatives have reportedly put the underground station’s opening in December 2031. The opposition began with escalating costs, contested capacity benefits and the visible impact of demolishing parts of the historic station and removing trees from the Schlossgarten. But the more useful story is what happened next. The controversy entered a televised mediation, electoral politics, a 2011 referendum, financing negotiations and the courts. These processes did not all perform the same function. The referendum made political withdrawal much harder. The courts allocated responsibility for the overruns. Neither created a credible delivery baseline or solved the project’s technical integration problems. Political continuity and delivery capability are different forms of risk. A mandate to continue is not a plan to deliver. This week’s edition 👇 #Infrastructure #Megaprojects #ProjectDelivery