By Tunnel or Bridge?

Back in 1802, when Napoleon still cherished dreams of conquering Britain, one of his engineers proposed the construction of a tunnel under the English Channel. The British never quite forgot Napoleon's designs, and for a century and a half afterward British governments vetoed the idea of a Channel tunnel as a threat to England's island security. But Britain's decision to join the European Common Market brings to an end the historic British policy of "splendid isolation" from the Continent. Last week, as British Transport Minister Ernest Marples flew to Paris to open the first Anglo-French talks on the subject since 1883, the question was no longer whether there ought to be a direct cross-Channel link, but rather whether the link should be a tunnel or a bridge.

An Assist from the U.S. The man behind the tunnel is not a European, but Manhattan Lawyer Frank Davidson, 43. Appalled by a rough Channel crossing in 1956, Davidson was the moving spirit in setting up the prestigious Channel Tunnel Study Group, consisting of his own Technical Studies Inc., a pair of venerable British and French companies associated with an 1881 attempt to bore a commercial tunnel, and the Suez Co., which, stripped of its canal, has become an investment company.

After exhaustive studies of both tunnel and bridge schemes, the group flatly favored a tunnel to be bored or dredged out of the chalk Channel bed. Plans for the bored tunnel actually call for two large parallel tunnels, each containing a single railway track, plus a small service tunnel. Stretching from Folkestone to Calais, the tunnels would run underwater for 23 miles. Autos and trucks would drive onto flatcars, be whisked through the tunnels at 60 m.p.h. by electric locomotives. Passenger and freight trains would be routed directly through the tunnels, cutting the train time from London to Paris from eight to less than five hours.

As the prospects for a tunnel grew brighter and brighter, French truckers became alarmed that the rail-only link might cut their earnings by forcing them to piggyback through the tunnel. Joined by British and French steelmakers, who stand to sell about 800,000 tons of steel if a bridge is built, the truckers set up a pro-bridge group headed by shrewd, forceful Jules Moch, last Interior Minister of France under the Fourth Republic.

Reviving a project drawn up in 1889, Moch's plan calls for a 2O.5-mile-long bridge, supported by 164 huge pilings, built straight from Cap Gris-Nez to South Foreland. A single railway would run along either side with a five-lane superhighway in between. Slung on girders over each side would be two lanes for bicycles and service vehicles. With a clearance of 164 ft., the bridge would be high enough at all points to allow most ships to pass under. It would rise at several points to a 230-ft. clearance to accommodate U.S. supercarriers and the big liners.

The Great Debate. The relative merits of tunnel and bridge have plunged their proponents into a no-holds-barred debate. Either is technically feasible. Each would cut the cost of a Channel crossing from $32 for a car with three passengers to $22.50, reduce freight charges by 50%. Both would take about five years to build. The tunnel's main advantage is that at an estimated $364 million, it would cost only half as much as the bridge. Moch contends that a tunnel would induce claustrophobia and be a trap in case of an accident. But pro-tunnel people contend that the bridge's numerous pilings would be a hazard to shipping and that the roadway would probably be impassable during fog.

Neither the British nor French government is as yet committed to either idea. They agreed last week to set up an intergovernmental committee to study the alternatives. As never before, economic realities now lend powerful support to demands for a Channel link. Cross-Channel transport of cars, which had been expected to rise by 30% in the past three years, actually rose 54%; where there were 5,750,000 cross-Channel passengers in 1957, current estimates are that there will be 11,400,000 in 1965. To handle this mounting load by present means, Britain alone would have to spend $56 million for new ferries, ports, planes and airfields in the next five years. By contrast, the proposed British contribution to a tunnel would be $73 million--and a tunnel would not wear out as do planes and ferries. And where a Channel bridge, because of its huge cost, would have to be subsidized by the British and French governments, a consortium of six international banks* is prepared to raise the entire cost of a Channel tunnel from private investors throughout Europe and the U.S.

*New York's Dillon, Read and Morgan Stanley, London's Erlangers Ltd. and Morgan Grenfell, Paris' de Rothschild Freres and Banque de l'Union Parisienne.

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