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#tunnel#tunnels#faroe#islands#population#cost#euros#more#article#own

Discussion (24 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

guidedlightabout 6 hours ago
The population of the Faroe Islands is just 56,210, how can they possibly afford this massive network of tunnels.

The website suggests the tunnel will cost 260m euros, how can that possibly be true?

masfuerteabout 2 hours ago
It's a game changer and it's less than five grand each. The US national debt is more than $100,000 each.
s3pabout 2 hours ago
That roughly comes out to $1.75 trillion for the US. That is literally their entire discretionary budget.

I don't really think the US would spend their entire 1.75tn budget on a tunnel

Taniwhaabout 6 hours ago
Like Greenland,the Faroe Islands are a self-governing, autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark. I'm sure this is highway funding from the mainland.
thaumasiotesabout 4 hours ago
The article says this:

> The income from this new tunnel is expected to fund the next tunnel projects on the Faroe Islands.

Which seems like something of a rosy description. I tend to agree that this is going to require heavy subsidies. But back of the envelope:

- The "whole tunnel project", involving multiple tunnels, is estimated at 260m euros.

- One transit one way across the most expensive tunnel is estimated at 10 euros. The tunnels aren't very long, so taking a trip through one is not arduous.

- The project's costs of construction could be covered if every one of the ~50k residents crossed that tunnel 5,000 times. That's about 14 times a day over one year, or twice a day over 7 years. A 7-year payback time doesn't seem that bad.

- The problems in that estimate are:

-- Not everyone is going to use the big tunnel. Most of the population has no need to cross that route; they'll use cheaper tunnels or stay on their own island...

-- ...or they'll ride as a passenger in someone else's car. It's unrealistic to expect every resident, down to the babies, to pay for their own independent set of tunnel crossings.

-- The tunnels also need to cover the cost of their own maintenance. Maintenance on undersea projects gets tricky.

Metacelsusabout 5 hours ago
If built in America it would easily cost 10x that!
zeafoamrunabout 6 hours ago
I never once thought of the Faroe Islands and now I want to visit!
Symbioteabout 5 hours ago
If you do, rent the smallest available car. You'll be thankful for it on single-lane tunnels, single-lane (for both directions) roads and so on.

This tunnel was fine, a novelty on a relatively long drive. The natural scenery was wonderful.

darrenfabout 2 hours ago
Or do as I did and just use the buses. Highly reliable IME.
glimsheabout 4 hours ago
Came here expecting a new Dave the Diver scenario, found a tunnel with color lights...
ginkoabout 5 hours ago
The cosmopolitan capital of Tórshavn. Population 14k people.
elcritchabout 7 hours ago
The underground roundabout is cool, but that art work sits somewhere between "meh" and slightly disturbing.
rendawabout 11 hours ago
Notably, nothing to do with jellyfish.
fwipsyabout 10 hours ago
I think certain titles do well because they become a sort of unintentional clickbait. I absolutely expected this to be about marine biology. The original title, "World's First Undersea Roundabout," is much clearer.

</crotchety_old_man>

darrenfabout 2 hours ago
In fairness, it’s literally called the jellyfish roundabout on the local bus timetables (as I know from having visited and caught the 450)

https://www.ssl.fo/en/timetable/bus/450-torshavn-eysturoy-je...

Razenganabout 8 hours ago
This is actually where LLMs save us from scummy human clickbait and shit, I can just ask ChatGPT etc to summarize an article and go on with my life while the AI suffers :')
unkeenabout 8 hours ago
Whilst the world suffers because more and more let's say "not entirely climate-neutral" data centres are being built beause you were to lazy to read an article you mean.
Tomteabout 3 hours ago
Flag it. Seriously. It‘s against the rules.
hopppabout 3 hours ago
Yeah, I was expecting jellyfish I'm disappointed.