Oil and gas rigs typically don't have to worry about intersecting other infrastructure.

Even then, things occasionally go awry.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur#Drilling_disaste...>

For an airport, the precision required both to not hit extant underground infrastructure and to know precisely where your newly deployed infrastructure is (for the next guy/gal to worry about) is probably a salient concern.

I'm not sure that horizontal drilling offers that degree of precision and assurance as opposed to rip-and-dig methods.

Sure they do. But then you have a tunnel under the runway that will flood and potentially freeze. Crumbling concrete and nonflat surfaces is not something you want on a runway or taxiway.

There may be designs that cut out some/most of the cost, but I made the comment because I watched a YouTube documentary on an airport that was making modifications and they had to dig up a bunch of the runways. They made a big deal out of the work, including working with a special contractor who had a practice area where they tried all the work they'd have to do ahead of time and timed themselves to be sure they could get the runway back in operating condition by the time it was needed. The amount of work they went through for something fairly minor was pretty memorable. I took from it that airports have a lot of logistical concerns that are pretty unique and the "that seems simple" take that I'd previously had about the tarmac portion of an airport being just a bunch of asphalt with some signs and lights on it was totally ignorant of all the complexity.

> flashing lights at either side of the crossway

787 wingspan is 200ft (60m). Planes don't turn on a dime either, but the larger ones do have steering linked to the rear wheels, so their turn radius can be surprising.

The non invasive solution would be to require some kind of ground control computer link that can directly draw their controlled path for them on their displays and give them a nice loud master caution or warning if they're about to break their assignment.

Then we can start thinking about ground autopilot systems.

That doesn't seem logical if the alternative is not having the lights at all.