This is a summary of Fast by Patrick Collison, not original research. Dates, costs, and examples come from his compilation. Start with his page: patrickcollison.com/fast.
The thesis is simple. Ambitious projects used to finish much faster. Physical infrastructure especially slowed after about 1970. Collison points at bureaucracy and interest-group vetocracy: more parties can block a project, so less gets built.
Van Ness vs the Alaska Highway
The comparison that makes the point. San Francisco proposed a Van Ness bus lane in 2001. It opened in 2022, about 7,600 days later. The project cost $346 million, or about $110,000 per meter.
The Alaska Highway, built in 1942 across remote tundra: 1,700 miles in 234 days, about $793 per meter in 2019 dollars.
Fast examples
A selection of the strongest timelines from Collison's list. Software and products still sometimes move this fast. Physical infrastructure mostly does not.
- BankAmericard: Dee Hock had 90 days to launch the card that became Visa, from scratch. He signed up more than 100,000 customers in that window.
- P-80 Shooting Star: Kelly Johnson's team designed and delivered the first USAF jet fighter in 143 days.
- Spirit of St. Louis: Donald Hall and Charles Lindbergh designed and built the plane in 60 days in 1927.
- Eiffel Tower: Built in 793 days. Finished in 1889 as the tallest building in the world, a record it held for more than 40 years.
- Apollo 8: NASA decided on August 9, 1968 that the mission should go to the moon. It launched December 21, 1968, 134 days later.
- Alaska Highway: 1,700 miles of military roadway in 234 days, starting in 1942.
- Disneyland: Walt Disney's park went from conception to opening in 366 days.
- Empire State Building: Construction started and finished in 410 days.
- Berlin Airlift / Tegel: After the June 1948 blockade, the airlift ran 463 days and 277,000 flights. Tegel airport planning started in July 1948, construction on August 5, and the first landing on November 5, about 92 days after building started.
- Pentagon: Decision on a Thursday evening, initial drawings that Sunday, construction finished January 15, 1943. 491 days. Brehon Somervell's usual answer for when something was needed: "the day before yesterday."
- New York subway vs Second Avenue: First contract February 21, 1900. Twenty-eight stations open and in general operation October 27, 1904, about 4.7 years. The MTA decided to build the Second Avenue Subway in April 2000. Phase one, three stations, opened January 1, 2017.
- TGV vs California high-speed rail: France approved Paris-Lyon high-speed rail on April 30, 1976. The line opened September 26, 1981, 1,975 days later. California formed its high-speed rail authority on September 24, 1996. The first phase, San Francisco to Anaheim, is estimated for 2033: about 13,000 days.
- JavaScript: Brendan Eich wrote the first prototype in 10 days in May 1995.
- Unix: Ken Thompson wrote the first version in three weeks.
- Git: Linus Torvalds started April 3, 2005. Self-hosting 4 days later. Linux 2.6.12-rc3 shipped with Git 17 days after work began.
- Amazon Prime: First version started in late 2004 and launched February 2, 2005, about six weeks later.
- iPod: Tony Fadell was hired in late January 2001. The first units shipped in November 2001, about 290 days after getting started.
- COVID / Moderna: The SARS-CoV-2 genome was published January 10, 2020. Moderna finalized the mRNA-1273 sequence 3 days later, manufactured a first batch on February 7, and shipped it to the NIH on February 24 (45 days after the genome). After 266 days of trials, Moderna announced 94.5% efficacy on November 16.
What's going on?
The physical infrastructure examples on Collison's page skew pre-1970. Software, products, and vaccines still show that speed is possible. Roads, rail, and stations often do not. He links these hypotheses rather than claiming a single proof:
- Marc Dunkelman on why Penn Station renovations keep failing: Politico.
- Alon Levy on slower construction and slower actual operation: Pedestrian Observations.
- Lynne Sagalyn on Ground Zero, with Ed Glaeser noting that the George Washington Bridge, then the world's longest suspension bridge, was built in 49 months in 1931: Power at Ground Zero, NYT review.
- Herbert Kaufman on red tape, with a Philip Howard foreword arguing that U.S. bureaucratic constriction changed in the 1960s: Red Tape.
- Philip Howard, Two Years Not Ten Years, on redesigning infrastructure approvals: report, plus a George Will column.
- Old vs New System of American government, from American Government: Brief Version: something important changed in the 1960s. Reference.
- Mancur Olson on stable societies accumulating interest groups that slow change. Empirical support is mixed. The Rise and Decline of Nations.
- Francis Fukuyama on vetocracy: interest groups can now block almost anything. Stanford interview.
Source
On the original page, Collison invites more examples with sources at patrick@collison.ie.