[Retric]

WTC had a great deal of will to build something, but also a lot of political meddling because it would be so iconic. You can read up on many of the details but by the initial plan was heavily altered by many stakeholders for to add office space, security concerns, etc.

For more classic example consider say the $252 million 2.8 mile Marc Basnight Bridge which started construction July 27, 2017 scheduled to be completed on February 2019 and actually opened on February 25, 2019. While huge it was politically uninteresting compared to WTC and much cheaper, so while it ended up on time and budget nobody paid much attention.

That bridge is much closer to the typical major project in the US than the kind of things people remember because they made the news and ran wildly over budget.