> The fear might be real in the minds of the decision makers but that doesn't mean it's well founded or the policies that arise out of it are not wasteful.

I mean I 100% agree with this by the way. We tried to tell the DOT to look at its own stats. The one lawsuit they actually paid out in was from street design before the formation of the DOT itself and the fact that they fell behind on the paving schedule. If you actually amortize the payout over 30 years (I think the city has had one of these roughly every 30 years) it ends up being some minuscule part of the budget. But they still shut us down.