Key Bridge's rising costs: Sign of the times?

The fact that the estimate to replace the Francis Scott Key Bridge doubled has immediately become a political hot potato ( “Key Bridge: Rising costs, wrong assumptions led rebuild cost to balloon, MDTA says,” Nov. 18). Is it because the original estimate was based on a smaller design? Is it because the cost of materials has gone up? Has the detail design phase revealed additional engineering challenges? How about all of the above?

These days, no military ship or aircraft procurement is ever delivered on time or within budget. Without a pipeline of future projects, the manufacturing mindset in this country is to draw out construction timelines and issue engineering change orders along the way.

During World War II, the Bethlehem-Fairfield shipyard in South Baltimore built 384 Liberty shi