10 Expensive Infrastructure “Solutions” That Were Total Fails

Infrastructure projects are meant to improve lives, reduce congestion, and modernize cities, but sometimes, they backfire spectacularly. Whether due to poor planning, unintended consequences, or outright corruption, these projects exacerbated the very problems they were designed to fix.

From flood barriers that made flooding worse to highways that increased traffic, here are 10 times infrastructure “solutions” completely failed—or even made things worse.

Related: 10 Buildings That Were Put Up or Modified out of Spite

10 The Katy Freeway Expansion (Houston, Texas, USA)

Houston’s Katy Freeway (Interstate 10) was once infamous for gridlocked traffic, so in the early 2000s, city planners proposed a massive expansion project. Their idea was simple: more lanes equal less congestion. By 2011, the highway had been widened to a staggering 26 lanes, making it the widest highway in the world. Officials believed this would eliminate bottlenecks and allow smoother travel. However, just a few years after its completion, commute times increased, and the freeway became even more congested.

The problem was induced demand, a well-documented traffic phenomenon where expanding roads encourages more people to drive. As soon as the Katy Freeway widened, commuters who previously avoided it began using it more, new businesses and housing developments popped up along the corridor, and overall vehicle dependency increased.

Traffic data from 2014 showed that morning travel times increased by 25% and evening commutes worsened by 30% compared to before the expansion. Instead of solving Houston’s congestion, the expansion solidified its reputation as a city dominated by endless traffic.^[1]

9 The Mississippi River Levees (USA)

For centuries, the Mississippi River has been a source of catastrophic flooding, devastating entire towns and farmland. To prevent this, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers spent decades constructing an extensive system of levees and flood barriers designed to contain the river within artificial boundaries. The logic was that if the river couldn’t overflow its banks, towns and cities along its path would be protected. However, these levees have worsened flooding over time, turning natural disasters into man-made catastrophes.

Levees force the river to flow faster and higher, which increases erosion and sediment buildup downstream. Instead of dispersing floodwaters gradually over a wide floodplain, levees channel water into narrower, more intense flood surges. When these structures fail or overflow, the resulting floods are far more destructive than they would have been naturally.

The 1927 Mississippi River flood, one of the worst in U.S. history, breached levees in multiple states, submerging 27,000 square miles and leaving over 700,000 people homeless. More recently, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 showed how levee failures can exacerbate flooding rather than prevent it, as New Orleans was left submerged under feet of water after multiple levees collapsed.^[2]

8 Jakarta’s Sea Wall (Indonesia)

Jakarta is one of the fastest-sinking cities in the world, with parts of it subsiding by nearly 10 inches per year due to excessive groundwater extraction. Rising sea levels threaten to submerge large sections of the capital, so in 2014, the Indonesian government announced a massive infrastructure project called the Great Garuda Sea Wall. The goal was to construct a giant coastal barrier in Jakarta Bay to keep rising tides at bay, protecting millions of residents from flooding. However, experts immediately warned that this wouldn’t solve the real problem.

The biggest issue is that Jakarta is sinking faster than the sea is rising due to groundwater over-extraction. Instead of addressing water management and urban planning issues, the sea wall simply traps water inside the city, leading to severe drainage and sanitation problems. Worse still, the land behind the wall continues to subside, meaning floodwaters have nowhere to drain. In some areas, Jakarta’s roads and buildings have already dropped below sea level, turning them into giant basins that flood regularly. While the project was meant to symbolize modern engineering, it has become a costly Band-Aid that fails to address the city’s long-term survival.^[3]

7 Pruitt-Igoe Public Housing (St. Louis, Missouri, USA)

In the 1950s, St. Louis faced a severe housing shortage, particularly for low-income residents. To solve this, the government built Pruitt-Igoe. This massive high-rise public housing complex was hailed as a modernist architectural marvel. Designed with spacious courtyards, shared community spaces, and towering apartment blocks, the project was meant to improve living conditions for thousands of families. Initially, it was celebrated as a progressive solution to urban housing issues. Still, within a decade, it had collapsed into one of the worst public housing disasters in U.S. history.

The project was underfunded and poorly maintained, leading to rapidly deteriorating conditions. Crime rates soared as gangs and drug activity took over, and residents were left with broken elevators, crumbling infrastructure, and rodent infestations. Because of racial segregation policies, Black residents were often given the worst-maintained units, further exacerbating tensions and dissatisfaction.

By the 1970s, entire buildings sat abandoned, and the city eventually demolished the entire complex in 1976, admitting that the experiment had failed completely. Instead of providing a solution to poverty, Pruitt-Igoe became a cautionary tale of how government-backed housing projects can fail spectacularly when they neglect long-term sustainability.^[4]

6 Mexico City’s Metro Expansion

Mexico City is built on what was once Lake Texcoco, meaning the ground beneath it is soft, unstable, and constantly shifting. Despite this, the city has continued to expand its metro system, even though the soil isn’t stable enough to support heavy rail infrastructure. Over the years, entire metro lines have warped and cracked, leading to station sinkholes, track failures, and costly shutdowns. Instead of reinforcing the foundations, the government has repeatedly opted for quick fixes and patchwork repairs, resulting in one of the most dangerous metro systems in the world.

The most catastrophic failure occurred in 2021, when a section of Line 12 collapsed mid-journey, killing 26 people and injuring dozens more. Investigations found that shoddy construction, poor maintenance, and ignored warnings about structural weaknesses were to blame.

Rather than solving transportation problems, Mexico City’s metro expansion has created a system that is crumbling faster than it can be repaired, endangering millions of daily commuters. Despite being one of the busiest metro systems in the world, it remains severely underfunded, and officials continue to ignore the sinking ground beneath their feet.^[5]

5 China’s “Ghost Cities”

In an effort to boost economic growth and modernize the country, China launched an ambitious campaign to build entire new cities from scratch. These urban centers were designed to house millions of people, featuring skyscrapers, massive shopping malls, government buildings, and high-speed rail connections. The problem? Many of these cities remain completely empty, turning them into modern-day ghost towns rather than thriving metropolises.

One of the most infamous cases is Ordos, Inner Mongolia, which was built for over a million people yet has remained largely uninhabited for years. Instead of solving urban overcrowding, these projects led to billions of dollars in wasted resources and abandoned infrastructure. Many ghost cities were funded by local governments taking on massive debt, hoping people would eventually move in. But because real estate prices were too high for average workers, many units sat unsold or owned as investment properties, leaving entire districts eerily silent.^[6]

4 Boston’s Big Dig (USA)

The Big Dig was supposed to revolutionize Boston’s transportation system, replacing the city’s congested elevated highway with a modern underground expressway. Originally estimated to cost $2.8 billion and take seven years, the project ended up dragging on for 16 years, ballooning to $14.6 billion—making it one of the most expensive infrastructure disasters in history.

The project was plagued with engineering failures, corruption, and delays from the start. Workers discovered Boston’s underground geology was far more complex than anticipated, requiring last-minute design changes that drove up costs. When the tunnels were finally completed, structural issues emerged almost immediately, including leaks, crumbling concrete, and misaligned tunnels.

In 2006, a massive concrete ceiling panel collapsed in one of the tunnels, killing a woman and raising serious concerns about the entire system’s safety. Despite the enormous cost, Boston’s traffic remains some of the worst in the country, proving that a project’s scale doesn’t guarantee success.^[7]

3 The Three Gorges Dam (China)

The Three Gorges Dam was built to control flooding, generate hydroelectric power, and improve navigation along the Yangtze River. Spanning 1.4 miles, it became the largest hydroelectric dam in the world, a symbol of China’s engineering ambition. But instead of solving flooding problems, the dam has actually exacerbated them, leading to devastating environmental consequences.

By altering the natural flow of the Yangtze, the dam has caused excessive sediment buildup, making downstream areas more vulnerable to extreme floods. The dam’s weight has also been linked to increased seismic activity, raising concerns that it could trigger earthquakes or landslides. Over 1.3 million people were displaced when their villages were submerged by the reservoir, leading to widespread social unrest.

Instead of being an engineering triumph, the Three Gorges Dam has become an ongoing environmental and humanitarian crisis.^[8]

2 Brazil’s Monorail Disaster

Ahead of the 2014 FIFA World Cup and 2016 Olympics, Brazil rushed to build a state-of-the-art monorail system in São Paulo to improve the city’s struggling public transportation. The project was meant to be a showpiece, demonstrating Brazil’s economic progress to the world. Instead, it became a high-profile failure, as corruption, construction delays, and budget overruns left much of the system incomplete.

Even though billions were spent, large sections of the monorail remain unfinished and unused, with some stations and tracks left abandoned mid-construction. Local governments ran out of money, and technical issues meant that even completed portions were never opened to the public. Rather than solving São Paulo’s transit crisis, the project became a symbol of Brazil’s infrastructure mismanagement, and many of the structures built for the Olympics are now decaying and unused.^[9]

1 Venice’s MOSE Flood Barrier

Venice has been slowly sinking for centuries, and with rising sea levels, the city faces an increasing risk of catastrophic flooding. To combat this, Italy launched the MOSE project (Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico), a massive flood barrier system designed to protect Venice from storm surges. Initially planned in the 1980s, the project was supposed to be completed by 1991. Instead, it suffered decades of delays, corruption, and mismanagement, eventually costing over $6 billion.

Despite the massive price tag, MOSE failed in its first real test. When severe flooding hit Venice in 2019, parts of the system malfunctioned or failed to rise in time, leading to record-high water levels submerging iconic landmarks like St. Mark’s Basilica. Corruption scandals revealed that millions of dollars meant for the project had been embezzled, further delaying critical repairs. Even today, experts question whether MOSE will be able to protect Venice in the long term, making it one of the most expensive infrastructure blunders in history.^[10]