We need to do the math, even on “small” projects
There is another degree of freedom here: project cost. Why on earth does 0.32 miles of residential road cost  $1.5M? Having just managed a construction project much larger than this stretch of road myself, I am certain that a lot of the blame here lies with the contracting process as well as outrageous fees (and just sheer inefficiency) from the engineers and contractors. There is no valid reason this should be so expensive. In the rest of the world, I guarantee you they are not paying over a million dollars for something like this and their standards are just as high if not higher.I’m not sure there is an opportunity to fix this - I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this now and modeling it out - by building a better construction company: most of the problem is, instead, essentially political.