the COVID-19 pandemic in New York City. The opening was ultimately postponed to January 25, 2023. In 2012, the United States Department of Transportation (USDOT)'s Inspector General announced that it wanted an audit done on the project, after the USDOT learned of the fourteen-year delay in the completion date and the more-than-100% cost increase. In 2015, the USDOT's Deputy Principal Assistant Inspector General for Auditing and Evaluation, Joseph W. Come, testified before the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform's Subcommittee on Transportation and Public Assets. Come said that several New York City transportation projects also experienced significant delays and cost overruns. This was due to a variety of factors, such as fraud, poor management, and a lack of oversight. The New York Times reported in 2017 that the project was slated to become the most expensive of its kind in the world. With an estimated cost of $12 billion, or about $3.5 billion per mile ( billion per kilometer) of new tunnel, the East Side Access tunnels were seven times as expensive as comparable railroad tunnels in other countries. Over the years, the projected cost of East Side Access had risen by billions of dollars due to unnecessary expenses. Contractors for the MTA were paid more than those working in other cities, even though that provided no construction benefits. Planning for East Side Access cost more than $2 billion, and planning for MTA projects in general also made up more of the cost than in other cities' projects. In addition, politicians and trade unions had forced the MTA to hire more workers than were needed. In 2010, an accountant had found that the project was hiring 200 extra workers, at a cost of $1,000 per worker per day, for no apparent reason. The bidding process for MTA construction contracts also raised costs because, in some cases, only one or two contractors would bid on a project. Similar construction projects in New York City, such as the Second Avenue Subway and 7 Subway Extension, had been more expensive than comparable projects elsewhere for the same reasons, even though other cities' transit systems faced similar, or greater, problems compared to the MTA. Other delays were attributed to the fact that dozens of contracts, some of which conflicted with each other, were bid out separately. Cost increases also occurred due to changing the design while construction was underway; ordering components