> edit 2: but to answer the question as asked, it would be way cheaper to use even a full-blown set of heavy earth-movers (and crew) than to pay the guy $10/h, 10h/day, 300 days/year for 22 years (which would cost $660k)
Not to mention the lives that could have been saved if the road was built faster with heavy machinery. I wonder how many people died waiting for that road to be built.
If there was no will to build it, then how much longer would it take for the road to be built? How many lives is that road saving now that it might not have if he hadn't built it?
If there was no one to build the road, then no one would've built it. It took a personal crisis, self-sacrifice and dedication to carve the road out of the mountain.
He probably saved a lot of lives after it was built, even one life would have been worth his efforts. I was just talking about opportunity costs and if some had helped him, less people would have died/suffered while the road was being built. If heavy machinery was involved, less people would've died waiting or suffered less traveling the long way to medical care.
Oh, I misunderstood your post. You're lamenting that it wasn't done faster - which is true. I thought you were leveling a hacker-ish attack that it was a waste of effort and could have done faster and cheaper, and that the man shouldn't have wasted so many years on something that could have been done trivially. My bad.
Not to mention the lives that could have been saved if the road was built faster with heavy machinery. I wonder how many people died waiting for that road to be built.