Lot's of cities have long, expensive tunnels, I remember when Buffalo's subway was put in, 5.2 miles underground.
Now I can't find an estimate of the total costs to build, but seems to me it was in the $billions, for a system which today moves around 8-million passengers per year.
Anyway, I've always thought such expenses were more about civil defense than actual transportation.
I-81 through Syracuse is several miles shorter than the beltway around, so I always use it late at night when the traffic isn't too heavy.
Rochester has a subway tunnel. Completely unused. Huge waste.
As a prospective Eagle Scout, I got a personal driving tour of the construction of I-481 by the head of the project.