MEGAPROJECTS--THEY ARE A DIFFERENT BREED

Abstract

To successfully address the transportation challenges facing the U.S. when megaprojects are deemed the solution, agencies must be able to plan, program, design, and deliver projects of immense size and complexity effectively. Not only are the resulting projects necessarily large, complex, and costly, but they also attract intense pressure to minimize, if not avoid entirely, their adverse construction/postconstruction impacts on daily commerce, quality of life, and the environment. The combined effect of these factors is what makes a megaproject a megachallenge. This article discusses how agencies can be successful in managing megaprojects by anticipating the difficulty of the task at hand before embarking on the mission, and also by realizing that megaproject management requires a complex and sometimes hard to comprehend set of public dynamics.