Western Europe seems to be doing fine. The EU opened 10x as many metro systems in 2024 compared to 2023 [1]. Notable systems include the Grand Paris Express, Thessaloniki Metro, and Milan M4.

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/1hf6p47/in_2024_th...

Not every western country (although every Anglophone country). There's a whole spectrum of costs - e.g. Spain has the lowest costs and fastest delivery of transit projects in the developed world, by a large margin (maybe an order of magnitude?). Alon Levy at https://pedestrianobservations.com covers this in great detail if you're interested.

"Delivery" perhaps, but an odd sentiment given Spain's notorious ongoing rail issues and airport misallocations.

https://www.euronews.com/travel/2024/11/30/crowds-breakdowns...

https://www.worldfinance.com/strategy/government-policy/spai...

I don't have any first-hand experience, but there's a lot of data:

  - https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-madrid-built-its-metro-cheaply/

  - https://pedestrianobservations.com/2024/12/07/low-spanish-costs-are-not-about-decentralization/