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The most expensive parts of tunnels are where you come to the surface. The Channel Tunnel is cheap in that regards because there is countryside on either end an
by bobthepanda 3y ago
The most expensive parts of tunnels are where you come to the surface. The Channel Tunnel is cheap in that regards because there is countryside on either end and no exits in the middle.
Designing a high capacity train station or highway exit in the middle of a city is quite expensive.
- backwardsmoo 3y agoWhat? The chunnel cost £26 billion in (2023 equivalent), and is 31 miles long. That's nearly a billion a mile. This is by no means cheap (yes yes cheap is a comparative term), tunnelling is absurdly expensive and not realistic. It's impossible to make the case for thousands of miles of underground tunnels that will add no benefit (what happens when something goes wrong? you can't simply overtake when something inevitably goes wrong (three train derailments per day in the US), it's underground so it's hard to access / fix problems etc etc. It's a foolish, expensive idea, when the US struggles to take care of it's own railway systems.
- Supermancho 3y agoThe more modern tunnel project in Seattle, USA would be useful to compare (instead of the Chunnel). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Route_99_tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Route_99_tunnel