Public Officials and Strategic Misrepresenation. They Lie.

Seattle Times Columnist Danny Westneat has found the research that validates what the rest of us already know.  Public Officials lie.  In this case, the lying is about the true costs of massive public works projects.

For those not following Seattle public works projects, we have an ugly old viaduct that routes traffic above and over our waterfront.  San Francisco used to have one just like it.  It needs to be replaced due to seismic damage.  There are lots of proposals including digging a tunnel with two fewer lanes (what?).  Can you say “Big Dig”.  Here’s what the Pols have to say.

“We don’t envision any cost overruns on this project.” — Pearse Edwards, spokesman for Gov. Chris Gregoire

“The way I see it, I don’t think we’re going to have overruns.” — State House Transportation Chairwoman Judy Clibborn

“There won’t be any cost overruns.” — State Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond

Hmmmm.  Here’s what Bent Flyvbjerg (pronounced flew-byair) has to say . . .

But a professor at Oxford University in England has done a compelling series of studies trying to get at why big public-works projects such as bridges, tunnels and light-rail systems almost always turn out to be far more costly than estimated.

“It cannot be explained by error,” sums up one of his papers, matter-of-factly. “It is best explained by strategic misrepresentation — that is, lying.”

I’m going to start using that phrase, “Strategic Misrepresentation.”  Here’s the scoop . . .

What’s so controversial about Flyvbjerg’s research is not his documenting cost overruns. It’s his effort to show why public projects are so chronically out of whack.

It’s not technical challenges or complexity or bad luck, he asserts. If that were so, you’d get more variation in how it all turns out. He concludes the backers of these projects suffer from two main maladies.

One is “delusional optimism” — they want it so badly, they can’t see its flaws. I know about this firsthand from when I supported the monorail.

The second is worse: They knowingly are lying to the public.

“Delusion and Deception in Large Infrastructure Projects,” was the title of Flyvbjerg’s most recent paper, published in January. He details through interviews with public officials how the pressure to get a project approved politically and under construction almost invariably leads to deception — a lowballing of costs and an exaggeration of benefits.

You can read the paper here.

Tags: PublicWorks, Seattle Tunnel, Lying, Danny Westneat, Bent Flyvbjerg, “Delusion and Deception in Large Infrastructure Projects, decision making