Most of the Norway's Western coast (basically the extent of the country) is mountainous so building infrastructure there inevitably involves blasting the rock. At the same time the country is huge, bigger than Germany or the UK. So naturally a lot of tunnels.
This one a bit special: most of the boat traffic through it are meant to be ferries so it is to be commissioned and managed by the National Road Authority. At the same time it's quite unique if only due to enormous cross-section and can't share many usual national design solutions for the tunnels. For instance my company was asked a quotation for a PA system for it and it's really a challenge. So it's no wonder that it's delayed so much: it requires a lot of bespoke solutions.
To stress how prolific tunnels are - if I drive from my home near Aalesund on the northwestern coast to the family seat at Voss (a bit inland from Bergen), some 360km/220mi or so, more than 1/4 of that distance is in tunnels. Can't remember how many, but dozens.
I think if you drive just the Bergen-Voss-Nordheimsund-Bergen circuit (some 200km?) that alone is 60 tunnels, and many of them are longer than what most countries have.
Yeah, governments invest on a different timescale than corporations. An investment like this typically enables future investments by other actors and adds up to a lot more than what you see currently.
For example a train station doesn't just serve the current people who live there, but the new town and all the new buildings that will be built around it as well. Infrastructure improves land value often by many orders of magnitude more than it costs to build.
This one a bit special: most of the boat traffic through it are meant to be ferries so it is to be commissioned and managed by the National Road Authority. At the same time it's quite unique if only due to enormous cross-section and can't share many usual national design solutions for the tunnels. For instance my company was asked a quotation for a PA system for it and it's really a challenge. So it's no wonder that it's delayed so much: it requires a lot of bespoke solutions.