<story><title>Underwater Roundabout in the Faroe Islands</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55195390</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>booi</author><text>That still doesn’t change the fact that this is a huge investment for 50,000 people. Those tunnels will likely never pay for themselves</text></item><item><author>hnlmorg</author><text>From what I&amp;#x27;ve gathered from reading other articles before this one, the weather can get pretty choppy at times and when that happens those islands become cut off. So it might not be a case of tunnels being less expensive but rather tunnels being more reliable.</text></item><item><author>Rexxar</author><text>Is there a geological property that makes tunnel less expansive to build in Faroe Islands ? More than 50km of tunnels for 50000 inhabitants seems huge (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_Islands&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_I...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lqet</author><text>To put that into perspective: the tunnel cost roughly 175M euros, that&amp;#x27;s 3.5k EUR per inhabitant. I don&amp;#x27;t find this excessive. From the maps, it looks like basically &lt;i&gt;every&lt;/i&gt; inhabitant benefits from those tunnels. Even if it just saves 100 EUR in gas per year and inhabitant, the tunnel is a societal net gain after about 35 years.&lt;p&gt;Also consider this:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; On the Eysturoy side of the tunnel house prices increased by 31% between 2019 and 2020 and have doubled between 2015-2020 [0]&lt;p&gt;Additionally, the tunnels are tolled [0]:&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Construction costs for the tunnel are being recouped through toll fees. Tolls start at 75 DKK for small cars (up to 3,500 kilograms (7,700 lb)) between Tórshavn and Eysturoy, and 25 DKK for local traffic between Saltnes (near Runavík) and Strendur. This price is for people who have a subscription (hald). Without subscription the price is 175 DKK between Eysturoy to Streymoy and 125 DKK between the two arms of Skálafjørður.&lt;p&gt;75 DKK are around 10 EUR. With an estimated 6,000 cars per day, thats 60,000 EUR per day. At this rate, the tunnel will have paid for itself (if maintenance cost is excluded) after 8 years.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eysturoyartunnilin&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Eysturoyartunnilin&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>Underwater Roundabout in the Faroe Islands</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-55195390</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>booi</author><text>That still doesn’t change the fact that this is a huge investment for 50,000 people. Those tunnels will likely never pay for themselves</text></item><item><author>hnlmorg</author><text>From what I&amp;#x27;ve gathered from reading other articles before this one, the weather can get pretty choppy at times and when that happens those islands become cut off. So it might not be a case of tunnels being less expensive but rather tunnels being more reliable.</text></item><item><author>Rexxar</author><text>Is there a geological property that makes tunnel less expansive to build in Faroe Islands ? More than 50km of tunnels for 50000 inhabitants seems huge (&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_Islands&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;List_of_tunnels_of_the_Faroe_I...&lt;/a&gt;)</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>MichaelZuo</author><text>That’s quarterly earnings type thinking, if you do the projections on a 50 year basis they almost certainly come out as a net gain, at least for Norwegian money. As they have lots of money looking for returns on investment overseas already.</text></comment>