The federal government audits its own predictions. 29 transit megaprojects, estimate recorded at every gate: early numbers missed by a median 18 percent - and collapsed to 1 percent once scope and schedule were locked.

Federal occupation-by-age data says the trades are younger than the average American worker. The old end of construction is the layer that runs the work - and more than a quarter of it is within ten years of retirement.

Every daily weather record from Camp Mabry since 1938, counted the way a scheduler counts: which days hurt a crew. Heat, not rain, sets the Austin calendar - and the most dangerous heat isn't the hottest.