Unaccountable. The Oregon Department of Transportation is unaccountable for routine cost overruns on major highway projects. Nothing it has done has acknowledged or solved this decades old problem, and giving it billions more will fuel further cost overruns. ODOT’s Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) misleadingly claim that 97% of projects are completed under budget. ODOT is careful to define overruns only as costs after contracts are awarded: this conceals ODOT staff’s consistent pattern of low-balling cost estimates to get projects approved. ODOT also has a practice of “re-baselining” a project—retroactively altering the initial cost estimate to conceal cost increases. ODOT’s project database omits every large project that has experienced a cost overrun. The agency’s Transportation Project Tracker dashboard lists only six tiny projects as having experienced cost overruns.
On this episode, Adelaide Writers Week director Louise Adler joins Paul Barclay to talk about the biggest challenges facing the arts sector, including higher costs and prices, greater reliance on philanthropy and greater vulnerability to political controversies.
This discussion was recorded on Monday 3 February 2025, and things may have changed since the recording.
Order What’s the Big Idea? 32 Big Ideas for a Better Australia now, via the Australia Institute website.
Guest: Louise Adler, Director of Adelaide Writers Week // @louieadller1
Host: Paul Barclay, Walkley Award winning journalist and broadcaster // @PaulBarclay
Show notes:
Commonwealth live music inquiry: sing along with the chorus now… by Morgan Harrington, the Australia Institute (March 2025)
The Carnival is Over: music festivals struggle as football roars by Morgan Harrington, the Australia Institute (October 2024)