Tunnel
Various Gibraltar tunnels have been proposed. Spain first proposed a modern tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar in 1930. A major problem arose when the engineers hired by the Spanish government discovered that the material under the Strait was extremely hard rock, making tunnelling impossible with the available technology. One engineering solution was to fix, using cables, a prefabricated concrete tunnel to the floor of the Strait. This tunnel would handle automotive and train traffic. Nothing came of this proposed solution.
A 2008 geological study cast doubt on the tunnel's practicality. In March 2009, a contract was issued for a joint system linking the Moroccan Société Nationale d'Etudes du Détroit de Gibraltar (SNED) with its Spanish counterpart, Sociedad española de estudios para la comunicación fija a través del Estrecho de Gibraltar S.A (SECEGSA). A three-year study for a railway tunnel was announced in 2003. SNED and SECEGSA commissioned several sea-bed surveys.
The Strait depth extends to 900 metres (3,000 ft) on the shortest route, although it is only about 300 metres deep slightly further west, where the European and African plates meet. The shortest crossing is 14 kilometres (8.7 mi). The proposed route of 23 kilometres (14 mi) is west of Tarifa and to the east of Tangier. The tunnel is likely to be about 34 km in all, and an additional rail line would be needed to link the Spanish end of the tunnel near Tarifa to Algeciras, where the current Talgo train-hotel service currently terminates.
A report on the feasibility of the tunnel was presented to the EU in 2009. A further study of project is under development by a group of specialised consultants from SYSTRA, Amberg and COWI.
Read more about this topic: Strait Of Gibraltar Crossing
Famous quotes containing the word tunnel:
“It is the light
At the end of the tunnel as it might be seen
By him looking out somberly at the shower,
The picture of hope a dying man might turn away from,
Realizing that hope is something else, something concrete
You can’t have.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“The drama critic on your paper said my chablis-tinted hair was like a soft halo over wide set, inviting eyes, and my mouth, my mouth was a lush tunnel through which golden notes came.”
—Samuel Fuller (b. 1911)
“The only way to find out anything about what kinds of lives people led in any given period is to tunnel into their records and to let them speak for themselves.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)