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I fail to understand why Faroe Islands need such tunnel in the first place considering the costs. There's only about 52,000 inhabitants on whole archipelago. Al

I fail to understand why Faroe Islands need such tunnel in the first place considering the costs. There's only about 52,000 inhabitants on whole archipelago. Also it doesn't seem like they have a bunch of factories and much of production going on.

Taniwha 6y ago
They have tunnels between almost all the islands, being able to drive between the islands rather than taking a boat on dangerous seas makes a lot of sense
- jillesvangurp 6y ago
  The article mentions a budget of a billion DKK. This would be a bit over 100M $. So, expensive but not that outrageous. Populations on these islands and their economies are small precisely because it is hard to get there and requires operating ferries (which costs money as well). Solve that problem and you might expect to see an effect on the local economy (more tourism, cheaper to move goods around, commutes to the mainland, etc.). If you then consider that they'll be benefiting from this for decades/centuries, it suddenly becomes a wise investment.
  - jacobush 6y ago
    I'd say it's downright cheap.
  - cinntaile 6y ago
    For the size of those tunnels that's pretty cheap I'd say. Both are about 11km and the most expensive one is 142 million usd. Even if you were to double the cost it's still fairly cheap. I wonder if it's paid for by the people living there or if it's paid for by the Danish mainland? Probably both. This will provide a good boost to their economy in the longer run.
    - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
      It's paid for by the value of having a distant outpost in the middle of The Atlantic, and the EEZ that comes with it.
    - halgir 6y ago
      It's financed by loans, paid for by tolls: https://www.tunnil.fo/english/pay-toll-charge/ https://www.tunnil.fo/english/pay-toll-charge/
- user2994cb 6y ago
  They have tunnels through a lot of the islands as well - mostly single track with passing places (looked pretty terrifying when I was there a couple of decades ago, though I was never the one driving).
  - user2994cb 6y ago
    A useful reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_Islands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_I...
    - pestatije 6y ago
      Wow, that's impressive tunnelling. On par with the swiss I'd say. Any plans for the big one (Suduroy - Shetlands ~250Km)?
robga 6y ago
I visited the Faroes 4 years ago. Locals were proud of their cold storage industry. Fish from North Atlantic trawlers flash frozen many hours earlier than delivery to the continent. Lucrative. I imagine a cross island road network would help this industry, opening new avenues for trawler arrival. It was a wonderful place to visit.
throwaway936482 6y ago
Because it will make life immeasurably easier for the inhabitants and Denmark can easily afford it? There are better ways of measuring the value of an investment than "will it make a bunch of vastly wealthy hyper capitalists even richer" which is the usual HN metric.
fogihujy 6y ago
Investing heavily in the infrastructure of the Faroe Islands and Greenland gives Denmark leverage whenever those territories start talking about independence. Furthermore, it's increasing the standard of living for the people who live there, and having infrastructure in place makes it easier to attract businesses in the future. There's also a cool-factor.
- usrusr 6y ago
  So basically Copenhagen's way of keeping Faroe Islanders on Faroe Islands. Do they get along that badly? And it's not money given to Faroe Islands, it's money given to companies much closer to home for doing cool digs beneath Faroe Islands. I believe that Denmark understands this difference very well.
  - fogihujy 6y ago
    There were plenty of people from the Faroe Islands and Greenland when I lived in Copenhagen a few years ago, and I never got the impression that Danes are hostile towards any of them. The Kingdom of Denmark is trying to keep itself in one piece though, and ensuring that people in the Faroe Islands and Greenland are happy being a part of the Kingdom is probably a good way of doing just that. Otherwise, they might just say yes when some US president attempts to buy them.
  - halgir 6y ago
    I don't follow local politics much, so I'm not 100% sure about the following. But my impression is that it's financed by loans, paid for with tolls for using the tunnels. And I think the project is being dug by Norwegians. Denmark does pay a yearly subsidy to the Faroe Islands of ~105M USD to help with general upkeep, but that's not earmarked.
    - usrusr 6y ago
      Oh, that shines a very different light on it, thanks!
    - jeofken 6y ago
Thlom 6y ago
In Norway we are currently building bridges and tunnels to a few islands with less than 3000 inhabitants for more than double the price of this Faroe project. :-)
- jeofken 6y ago
  Is it common for rich Norwegians to legally move to Sweden and use almost Swiss level ISK to escape the 25% capital gains and ~1.4% wealth tax?
  - jeofken 6y ago
    For posterity: I misremembered how much wealth is disincentivized in Norway - it’s “only” 0.85% wealth tax and 24% capital gains. This explains why there are way fewer who become millionaires in Norway than in Switzerland, even if Norway is so rich in resources while CH is not
  - Thlom 6y ago
    No.
torgard 6y ago
You used to have to take a large detour to get to Klaksvík - which is the second largest town - from Tórshavn (the capital). By taking the tunnel, you shave off 27 minutes. Travel time to almost all of the north-eastern islands, and the towns on these islands, has been cut down by half an hour. It is also safer. They also argue that it is cheaper, but I don't know about that. Ignoring industry, that's just quality of life. But consider a car accident; the ambulances have to get there in a hurry. Minutes might save lives here.
- ovi256 6y ago
  > consider a car accident; the ambulances have to get there in a hurry. Minutes might save lives here. If that's the reason, why not build that tunnel in a big city, where there are a lot more accidents and lives to be saved ?
  - halgir 6y ago
    > Faroe Islands > Big city Choose one. Though being serious, it takes about five minutes to drive to the hospital from any point in the capital if you have sirens going.
    - ovi256 6y ago
      Exactly, so again, if that's the reason, why build that tunnel at all in the islands with low population rather than in a big city where there are a lot more lives to be saved ?
      - halgir 6y ago
        I'm sorry, do you mean build the tunnel in an entirely different country?
  - torgard 6y ago
    > why not build that tunnel in a big city The Faroe Islands are _tiny_. Land area of about 1,399km² Just a little bit larger than New York City, which is 1212km². Long Island, NY more than twice as big.
chrisseaton 6y ago
> Also it doesn't seem like they have a bunch of factories and much of production going on. What’s this got to do with anything?
- dijit 6y ago
  Economy is all that some people think about, never standards of living or politics.
jVinc 6y ago
When the financing for much of this was agreed upon it was under the previous danish prime minister Lars Løkke, who's wife is Faroese. The second he stopped they founded a company there which has close ties to some travel company among other things. Besides this the family has general connections to the economy there naturally.

Taniwha 6y ago

They have tunnels between almost all the islands, being able to drive between the islands rather than taking a boat on dangerous seas makes a lot of sense

jillesvangurp 6y ago
The article mentions a budget of a billion DKK. This would be a bit over 100M $. So, expensive but not that outrageous. Populations on these islands and their economies are small precisely because it is hard to get there and requires operating ferries (which costs money as well). Solve that problem and you might expect to see an effect on the local economy (more tourism, cheaper to move goods around, commutes to the mainland, etc.). If you then consider that they'll be benefiting from this for decades/centuries, it suddenly becomes a wise investment.
- jacobush 6y ago
  I'd say it's downright cheap.
- cinntaile 6y ago
  For the size of those tunnels that's pretty cheap I'd say. Both are about 11km and the most expensive one is 142 million usd. Even if you were to double the cost it's still fairly cheap. I wonder if it's paid for by the people living there or if it's paid for by the Danish mainland? Probably both. This will provide a good boost to their economy in the longer run.
  - IfOnlyYouKnew 6y ago
    It's paid for by the value of having a distant outpost in the middle of The Atlantic, and the EEZ that comes with it.
  - halgir 6y ago
    It's financed by loans, paid for by tolls: https://www.tunnil.fo/english/pay-toll-charge/ https://www.tunnil.fo/english/pay-toll-charge/
user2994cb 6y ago
They have tunnels through a lot of the islands as well - mostly single track with passing places (looked pretty terrifying when I was there a couple of decades ago, though I was never the one driving).
- user2994cb 6y ago
  A useful reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_Islands https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_I...
  - pestatije 6y ago
    Wow, that's impressive tunnelling. On par with the swiss I'd say. Any plans for the big one (Suduroy - Shetlands ~250Km)?

robga 6y ago

I visited the Faroes 4 years ago. Locals were proud of their cold storage industry. Fish from North Atlantic trawlers flash frozen many hours earlier than delivery to the continent. Lucrative. I imagine a cross island road network would help this industry, opening new avenues for trawler arrival. It was a wonderful place to visit.

throwaway936482 6y ago

Because it will make life immeasurably easier for the inhabitants and Denmark can easily afford it? There are better ways of measuring the value of an investment than "will it make a bunch of vastly wealthy hyper capitalists even richer" which is the usual HN metric.

fogihujy 6y ago

Investing heavily in the infrastructure of the Faroe Islands and Greenland gives Denmark leverage whenever those territories start talking about independence. Furthermore, it's increasing the standard of living for the people who live there, and having infrastructure in place makes it easier to attract businesses in the future. There's also a cool-factor.

usrusr 6y ago
So basically Copenhagen's way of keeping Faroe Islanders on Faroe Islands. Do they get along that badly? And it's not money given to Faroe Islands, it's money given to companies much closer to home for doing cool digs beneath Faroe Islands. I believe that Denmark understands this difference very well.
- fogihujy 6y ago
  There were plenty of people from the Faroe Islands and Greenland when I lived in Copenhagen a few years ago, and I never got the impression that Danes are hostile towards any of them. The Kingdom of Denmark is trying to keep itself in one piece though, and ensuring that people in the Faroe Islands and Greenland are happy being a part of the Kingdom is probably a good way of doing just that. Otherwise, they might just say yes when some US president attempts to buy them.
- halgir 6y ago
  I don't follow local politics much, so I'm not 100% sure about the following. But my impression is that it's financed by loans, paid for with tolls for using the tunnels. And I think the project is being dug by Norwegians. Denmark does pay a yearly subsidy to the Faroe Islands of ~105M USD to help with general upkeep, but that's not earmarked.
  - usrusr 6y ago
    Oh, that shines a very different light on it, thanks!
  - jeofken 6y ago

Thlom 6y ago

In Norway we are currently building bridges and tunnels to a few islands with less than 3000 inhabitants for more than double the price of this Faroe project. :-)

jeofken 6y ago
Is it common for rich Norwegians to legally move to Sweden and use almost Swiss level ISK to escape the 25% capital gains and ~1.4% wealth tax?
- jeofken 6y ago
  For posterity: I misremembered how much wealth is disincentivized in Norway - it’s “only” 0.85% wealth tax and 24% capital gains. This explains why there are way fewer who become millionaires in Norway than in Switzerland, even if Norway is so rich in resources while CH is not
- Thlom 6y ago
  No.

torgard 6y ago

You used to have to take a large detour to get to Klaksvík - which is the second largest town - from Tórshavn (the capital). By taking the tunnel, you shave off 27 minutes. Travel time to almost all of the north-eastern islands, and the towns on these islands, has been cut down by half an hour. It is also safer. They also argue that it is cheaper, but I don't know about that. Ignoring industry, that's just quality of life. But consider a car accident; the ambulances have to get there in a hurry. Minutes might save lives here.

ovi256 6y ago
> consider a car accident; the ambulances have to get there in a hurry. Minutes might save lives here. If that's the reason, why not build that tunnel in a big city, where there are a lot more accidents and lives to be saved ?
- halgir 6y ago
  > Faroe Islands > Big city Choose one. Though being serious, it takes about five minutes to drive to the hospital from any point in the capital if you have sirens going.
  - ovi256 6y ago
    Exactly, so again, if that's the reason, why build that tunnel at all in the islands with low population rather than in a big city where there are a lot more lives to be saved ?
    - halgir 6y ago
      I'm sorry, do you mean build the tunnel in an entirely different country?
- torgard 6y ago
  > why not build that tunnel in a big city The Faroe Islands are _tiny_. Land area of about 1,399km² Just a little bit larger than New York City, which is 1212km². Long Island, NY more than twice as big.

chrisseaton 6y ago

> Also it doesn't seem like they have a bunch of factories and much of production going on. What’s this got to do with anything?

dijit 6y ago
Economy is all that some people think about, never standards of living or politics.

jVinc 6y ago

When the financing for much of this was agreed upon it was under the previous danish prime minister Lars Løkke, who's wife is Faroese. The second he stopped they founded a company there which has close ties to some travel company among other things. Besides this the family has general connections to the economy there naturally.