The reason that the jobs weren't shovel-ready was all those environmental regulations. It can take more than a decade to get the environmental reviews completed and approved by the EPA for a simple highway overpass. The bigger the project, the more hoops you need to jump through to get from project inception to the first shovel.
Obama could have issued an executive order suspending all those regulations for the projects intended, but that would have enraged the green lobby, which was critical to his election.
The final result was that certain big-ticket rail improvement projects were financed in Illinois, California, North Carolina and Washington state where all the necessary studies had been completed years ago and were sitting in DOT file cabinets awaiting a check.
Most of the money went unspent and was refunded to the Treasury in the 4th quarter of 2017.
ROTFLMAO!!!!!!! tell me another!
The environmental regulations and residents opposing construction are behind all major construction problems.
They build short Phoenix bypass. ~30 years of lawsuits. 2 years of construction.
Even the California speed train project is stuck because of these!
Since they cannot build anything fast, they will just resurface corner crossing, making them even more wheelchair friendly. The third or fourth time!