Right now, a flight from Atlanta to the United Kingdom comes in at about 9 hours, and that’s not even counting the hours it takes to get to the airport, get though security, find your gate and more–but what if you could change that journey from a whole day to… just an hour?
All of that could change with the proposition of a Transatlantic tunnel that would travel from the East Coast to London.
Wait… what?
Yeah, it’s an actual idea! There has been discussion for decades about a transatlantic tunnel that could transport people from NYC to London in just an hour.
The Transatlantic tunnel, which is still in the infancy of its conceptualization, would move at proposed speeds exceeding 5,000 miles per hour. That’s much faster than supersonic jets that would travel 1,000 miles per hour.
This would mean that the 3,4000 mile journey from New York to London would only take about 54 minutes total.
Where’d they even come up with this idea?
The idea for a transatlantic tunnel is inspired by the Channel Tunnel, an existing, 31-mile-long railway that travels from Folkstone, England to Coquelles, France in just 35 minutes. The trip includes about 23.5 miles of undersea travel, through the tunnel. As of right now, the Channel Tunnel is the longest undersea tunnel in the world, but that could change in the future.
And the transatlantic tunnel isn’t the only one on the forefront of inventors’ minds. According to the London Economic,
it was reported earlier this year that a new underwater tunnel could be given the go-ahead to link Spain and Morocco… The Moroccan National Company for Strait Studies (SNED) announced in May that work is underway to explore whether the project is possible, from a financial and logistical perspective.
So, is this really happening?
That’s a little less straightforward of an answer. In short, not yet. This idea is still in its theoretical stages, with no solidified or reported design or timeline. However, there have been many proposed ideas, such as:
- building the entire tunnel beneath the ocean floor
- a floating tunnel anchored by cables and submerged just below the water’s surface
- a hybrid of the two ideas
All we can say for now is… don’t cancel your plane tickets just yet. But it is an exciting new piece of information that could be a wonderful addition to our way of traveling!