I think your mistake is is assuming there was any design involved. Or, more accurately, any design related to functionality. Or that a person is in charge of the big picture, or that anyone even knows what the big picture is.
My interpretation is that it's mess of decisions by different people and that the people making each decision knew very little about any the one part they were deciding on and nothing about the whole picture and that the people who implement the decisions will have no voice in the matter. Centre line not in the centre? Street lights in an obviously wrong place? Well, that's where the orders say to put them. Orders from someone who's never been there and has no real clue about the situation, but orders none the less. So they have to be obeyed - the people who do the work are paid to obey orders, not to question them.