CBC Digital Archives - Transport General - Chunnel of love ... and loathing

Chunnel of love ... and loathing

The Story
Did You Know?
Credits
Citation

Thousands of workers and an armada of huge boring machines are at work under the English Channel, carving out the Channel Tunnel to link Britain and France. As they close that gap under water, a new one is developing up above. The tunnel project is creating a difference of opinion as wide as the Channel itself. The French enthusiastically embrace the project, while Britons are wary of a negative social, economic and environmental impact of this underwater link that forever erases its identifying status as an island nation.

In this clip, British MP Jonathan Atkins predicts that the Chunnel would finish "wildly over budget," which proved an accurate forecast. The final cost was 5 billion (approximately $11 billion Cdn), which was 80 per cent over the original budget. In 1996, the American Society of Civil Engineers named the Chunnel as one of its Seven Wonders of the Modern World. The others are:
The CN Tower.
The Empire state Building.
The Golden Gate Bridge.
The Panama Canal.
The Itaipu Dam, a five-mile wide dam on the Brazil-Paraguay border.
The North Sea Protection works, a system of dams, dikes, floodgates and other works that prevent flooding in the Netherlands.

Medium: Television
Program: The Journal
Broadcast Date: May 25, 1990
Guest(s): Jonathan Aitken, Henri Cap, Jacques Dian, Wallie Tipples
Host: Barbara Frum
Reporter: Ann MacMillan
Duration: 13:12

Last updated: February 21, 2012

Page consulted on September 15, 2014

All Clips from this Topic

CPR unveils its first ...

"The Ashgrove" is the name of CPR's miniature luxury hotel room on whe...

See More »

Pickering residents fi...

In 1972, residents of a community east of Toronto are bitterly divided...

See More »

Chunnel of love ... an...

Difference of opinion over the Channel Tunnel grows as the tunnel itse...

See More »

The 'Chunnel' official...

English and French dignitaries cut the ribbon on the Channel Tunnel, p...

See More »

1977: VIA Rail Canada ...

The week of VIA Rail Canada's creation, reporter Bob Johnstone intervi...

See More »

1914: Empress of Irela...

Heavy fog leads to a deadly collision that kills 1,012 people in Canad...

See More »

1970: 109 dead in Bram...

The crash of Air Canada Flight 621 in Brampton is examined days after ...

See More »

1979: Dempster Highway...

The highway that John Diefenbaker championed two decades earlier is co...

See More »

1949: 118 die aboard c...

Fire tears through a luxury steamship in Toronto's harbour.

See More »

1955: Winnipeg's last ...

Modernization of Winnipeg's transit system means the end of the street...

See More »

1975: 29 die in the si...

A winter storm sends the U.S. freighter, and its entire crew, to the b...

See More »

Chunnel of love ... and loathing

All Clips from this Topic

Related Content