Helsinki and Tallinn Agree to Build the World's Longest Underwater Rail Tunnel

[brooklynite]

Source: CityLab

This week, Finland got a step closer to building the longest undersea rail tunnel in the world.

The cities of Helsinki and Tallinn, Estonia, have just signed an agreement to develop a rail line connecting the two capitals via a 92-kilometer (57.2 mile) tunnel beneath the Baltic Sea. If all goes to plan, the link could slash journey times: a trip that currently takes one hour and 40 minutes at its very shortest would last just 30 minutes.

The link, costing up to €13 billion (roughly $14 billion), would nonetheless do more than just speed up the flow of goods and people. It would help fashion the two cities into a single metro area. From being lonely siblings waving at each other across the waves, Helsinki and Tallinn could effectively become two centers of a newly unified metropolis of 1.5 million citizens.

Bringing Helsinki and Tallinn more closely makes perfect sense. The two capitals already have close connections, helped by the mutual intelligibility of the Finnish and Estonian languages. Linked by a ferry crossing that transports 8 million passengers annually, the two cities have been growing together since Estonia achieved official independence in 1991. Business and tourist traffic between the two cities goes in both directions; a third of all Estonia’s alcohol sales, for example, are bought by Finns who cross the sea on the hunt for cheaper booze.

Read more: http://www.citylab.com/commute/2016/01/helsinki-tallinn-rail-tunnel-baltic/423030/

[LiberalEsto]

1. Just think of all the revenue from DUI tickets!

Finns do travel to Estonia frequently to binge-drink, because alcoholic beverages are far less expensive there than in Finland.

Estonians sometimes refer to Finns as "northern moose" (põhja põdrad) because of the way they drunkenly stumble around Tallinn.

I , for one, would not want to ride in that tunnel when it's full of drunks.

[Ace Rothstein]

3. According to the article it will be a rail tunnel.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Whew, I'm so relieved

So much more sensible.

[JoFerret]

19. Had a similar thoght

Am sure that the Helsinki-Tallinn link is important for all kinds of reasons but never did understand the economics of paying a ferry fee to import personal loads of cheap booze.

[Bjornsdotter]

2. Yikes!

Not sure I could make the trip. I have a hard time on the short tunnel when leaving Denmark on the Öresund Bridge.

[Art_from_Ark]

9. If you think that's bad, think of being in Japan's Seikan Tunnel

during the M9.0 earthquake of 2011. And if you want to have a truly undersea tunnel experience, you can stop and buy some souvenirs at the tunnel's "Kaitei Eki", the world's only undersea "station".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seikan_Tunnel

[FrodosPet]

4. Bringing the world together with cheap booze

[DhhD]

6. A new exit in case of a Russian movement like Ukraine.

[okojo]

8. Estonia is part of NATO and EU, Finland is part of the EU..

Russia will be a bully on this project, or anything that it doesn't control in its "Near Abroads", but Russia can't run ramshod over Estonia and Finland as it did with Ukraine, besides Finland is a huge trading partner for Russia... and Russia needs Finnish Ships built in Finland's shipyards..

[iandhr]

7. Wow

Sounds cool. I have been Chunnel but that 31.4 mi.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Channel_Tunnel

[trillion]

10. Cool. Good for them.

[KamaAina]

11. "Helsinki and Tallinn could effectively become two centers of a newly unified metropolis of 1.5M"

57 miles apart? By that logic, so could Baltimore and Washington, or for that matter, San Jose and San Francisco/Oakland. (Believe me, it doesn't work that way now. ) The key is high-speed rail links.

[kentauros]

16. This is why we can't have nice things like the rest of the world:

[LiberalEsto]

20. +1000! n/t

[tabasco]

12. Countries can do cool things when they don't spend a trillion every year on "defense"

Just imagine what the USA could do for our infrastructure and society if we cut our defense budget in half. We'd still spend by far more than any other nation.

[24601]

14. What do you believe the DoD budget is in terms of dollars, % of the federal budget and % of GDP? n/t

[tabasco]

17. It doesn't matter what I believe. What matters are facts.

The US spends nearly as much as the rest of the world combined on "defense."

Percent of GDP is irrelevant. Only actual threats to national security are relevant when discussing the defense budget. Otherwise, you are simply rationalizing and excusing massive profiteering that is robbing the American people.

What do you believe makes it necessary to spend so much on defense. ?

[24601]

18. I'm perfectly fine limiting DoD the the same expenditure as Social Security and capping it at 5% of

the GDP, But when you cited a annual budget of a trillion you were off by $400B.

For example, the 2014 DoD budget was $596B - 17% of the federal buget

Social Security was $845B, 24%

Health Care Spending was $831B.

In 2015, DoD represented 4.5% of GDP and it is projected to be 3.8% on 2020.

[tabasco]

21. Why on Earth link defense spending to social security?

That is simply bizarre and illogical.

[tabasco]

22. Actual "defense" spending is closer to a trillion.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/02/the-real-defense-budget/253327/

[Kaleva]

13. I wouldn't want to be there when ISIS blows it up

[ChairmanAgnostic]

15. If the GOP ever decided to build something, instead

of destroying so much of our society, their tunnel would lead from
Houston to Dallas,
It would be powered by coal powered trains,
It would fail to carry anyone of color,
It would force women to prove that their husbands allowed them to travel
And
The contractors would make out like bandits with Turner Construction or Xi like contracts in Iraq.
The only difference would be that there would be no cargo jet filled with cash for bribes. They would handle those electronically.