As an employee of the State of NY working for the City University of NY, I've been involved with a lot of construction projects. Tons of ways to get cost overruns and I see it all the time, thus nothing surprises me and I could write a book on the wastage. But not today.
The recently opened State of NY Parks Dept. extension of a boardwalk and path ran $3.5 million, has 1.5 miles of bike path width asphalt laid and another 2.5 miles of conversion of existing concrete parking lots, so a lot of line painting and signage. Expensive paint it seems and it's gotta be put in the correct place so that costs.
A few years back they extended a path to the actual beach and bath houses at this park, that essentially involved installing Jersey barriers to separate the MUT from the existing parking lot, then paint the lane markings on the old parking lot. About 100 ft of new asphalt was laid. $1.5 million. I'm betting about half that cost was design.