Why no one is going to build a bridge between Alaska and Russia

Trump will - he won’t need to fly to Moscow to meet up with his bestie!

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Well TIL.

I had never even considered that there wasn’t a land link. That is fascinating.

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Depending on how you look at it there hasn’t been a land connection of any kind since 1914.

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Interesting ad for Skillshare.

I notice he didn’t mention ice floes, you think an iceberg cares about our neatly constructed bridge pylons?

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I’m reminded of how Theodore Roosevelt risked his life in South America in part (of course it was really for the adventure of the thing) to explore a route for a telegraph cable, only for radio telegraphy to be invented right after. Similarly the Panama Canal, although useful for shipping I’m sure, is not really necessary for travel now that airplanes exist. It seems like such a bridge, although kinda neat conceptually, isn’t really needed.

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So unnecessary they’ve had to massively expand it just last year?

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Not for travel, no. Nor really for the type of military usage it was built for in the Wake of the Spanish american war era.

Ok fine, a ton of shipping happens through there but I think you get my point. I think a bridge would be more likely if we couldn’t just fly across there or take another, safer route. Especially considering the limited need that far north.

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sometimes when you can see somebody’s house from your window you realize they live in a dump and you don’t want to visit.

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That was my first thought.

My second thought is that a bridge connecting the Doimedes would be between Alaska and Russia and only cost a few billion.

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By the time this project would be competed we won’t have any icebergs to worry about.

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I don’t think there’s even a road from Western Alaska to the continental US. Although I guess if you’re spending 100 billion on a bridge from nowhere to nowhere you can afford to build the road down to Seattle.

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Although it’s been many years since I read this book, I found it highly entertaining. They attempt to drive from Tierra del Fuego to Prudhoe Bay, Alaska.

One of their sponsor was a irradiated boxed milk company, and it proved (it not the way you’d think) useful for getting past an armed rebel road block.

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We should build a wall. Or rather a 60 meter dike and pump out the Bering straight. Maybe add a giant fish ladder for the Beluga whales to cross.

That Willy Wonka reboot?

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Yeah, I thought this video was going to be about interesting technical challenges or something, not just nine minutes of a dude saying “This won’t be built as it’s prohibitively expensive and literally no one is asking for it as no one lives there” in a variety of ways.

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Canada’s confederation bridge is probably one of the better examples of the engineering considerations entailed there

It utilizes purpose-designed piers to cope with the sea ice that flows under it

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PEI population 153,244.

Folkestone and Calais?

(Yeah, I know what you mean, but it is, by far, not just the rail link from London to Paris that goes through the tunnel. Many, many cars - and trucks - go to and from the two slightly less large towns via the chunnel. I’ve done it a few times and it is better than the ferry.)

ETA much later, just in case anyone does not realise… the motor vehicles go on specially adapted trains. Nobody drives through the chunnel!

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And make Russia pay for it!

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Interesting. Yeah, perhaps that’s an indication they could find a way to protect against ice floes, but the Northumberland Strait is not the open ocean right at the Arctic Circle so I’m still thinking Titanic-level disaster if they ever built a bridge across the Bering Strait.

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