The Big Problem with a Bering Strait Crossing

As different as the U.S. and Russia may seem, there’s not much that divides the two countries. Just fifty-three miles, or eighty-three kilometers, to be exact.

The Bering Strait, the smallest divide between the U.S. and Russia, is a narrow strip of water that separates Alaska from Siberia. During the last ice age, about eleven thousand years ago, water levels dropped low enough to form a land bridge between the two continents. Known as Beringea, this geographical phenomenon allowed humans and animals to migrate across, then it promptly disappeared with rising sea levels.

Proposals for a railway tunnel and highway bridge to span its width have brought focus back on the strait since the industrial age. This proposed megaproject has spurred much interest since it was first proposed in the late 19th century. Now, nearly 200 years later, the plan’s supporters are just as enthusiastic about seeing it completed as ever, even if the plan itself is nowhere closer to being reality.

But enough teasing, let’s get strait to the point: today we will take a look at the Bering Strait Crossing, the attempt to connect America and Russia.

History

In 1846, the governor of the Colorado territories proposed a “Cosmopolitan Railway” that would start in Colorado, go up to the Western shores of Alaska, and link all the continents together via the Bering Strait.

In 1890, the designer of the Golden Gate bridge used his college thesis to draw up blueprints for a Siberian-Alaskan railway bridge. In 1906, Tsar Nicholas II even proposed a Bering Strait Bridge Project, but it was abandoned at the onset of World War I.

After the Bolshevik Revolution brought the communist party to power, relations between the U.S. and Russia took a turn for the worse for much of the twentieth century.

Calls for a bridge or tunnel to be built continued on during this time from both Russian and American scientists, engineers, and businessmen. For example, in the 1960s, Chinese-American engineer Tung Yen Lin drew up plans for an International Peace Bridge to span the gap between the divided countries.

As the diplomatic ice age of the Cold War thawed and relations between America and Russia improved, more serious calls brought together like minds in support of the connection. Their wants were not outlandish. After all, projects of similar scale had been completed before.

The Suez Canal was completed in 1869. The Panama Canal was built in 1914. The English Channel tunnel was completed in 1994.

Megaprojects had built the world of the 20th century. Massive skyscrapers filled cities. Newer modes of transportation were taking humans around the world. And infrastructure projects connected parts of the world long viewed as far apart. As the 21st century rolled around, people began asking why we couldn’t do the same in the Bering Strait.

Participants of an international conference in Moscow in 2007 lobbied member-nations of the G8 to make it a priority.

In 2009, the administration of then-Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, conducted studies for the feasibility of rail transit to a Bering Strait tunnel.

In 2015, Vladimir Yakunin, head of Russian Railways, unveiled detailed plans he had drawn up of a high-speed railway system through Siberia, ending at the mouth of a tunnel that would, ideally, connect to Alaska.

Design

The idea of a Bering Strait connection has cropped up many times over the years. The two forms it often takes is of a railway tunnel or of a highway bridge. Various companies have put forth plans or offered funding for the project many times. But the ideas seldom make it out of the planning stage.

Given how the ideas for a bridge or tunnel frequently switch, the discussion around this megaproject often lumps the two together. However, to make it practical, the project would only be able to include one of the two.

No matter what the final project ends up including, the implications of it are exciting to consider. It could mean a truly worldwide rail network, or car travel from New York to London or even Miami to Johannesburg being possible.

What makes this ambitious project possible are two small islands that sit in the middle of the Bering Strait. These two neighboring islands would serve as anchor points for the bridge or as exhaust outlets and stations for the railway tunnel along the 50-plus mile-long expanse.

The proposed plans for the railway tunnel, as they stand today, often use the English Channel tunnel as a comparison. Although the Bering Strait is more than twice the length, its deepest point is around 200 feet (58 meters), which is comparable to that of its European counterpart.

Funding Challenges

Building the tunnel or the bridge alone would cost around $25 to $100 billion. But the two options are only part of a bigger picture. For example, if the plan moved forward with the railway tunnel, the ideal endpoint would be a worldwide railroad network: an international system that would connect all the major rail lines of the world from Europe to Asia to North America. The idea for a “Cosmopolitan Railway” proposed by the Colorado Territories governor all those years ago has stuck around.

This Bering Strait connection would serve as just a link in the bigger chain. Estimates of the cost of this worldwide railroad network exceed $1 trillion.

According to proponents of the project, oil pipelines would accompany the connection. This, and increased transport along the route, would allow Russia, the U.S. and Canada to exchange millions more barrels of oil.

Supporters cite the revenue brought in from the increased energy and oil trade as a source of funding that could help the project pay for itself.

Logistical Challenges

The land on either side of the Bering Strait is known for its frozen, barren, untouched wilderness. This means it has a conspicuous lack of roads and railways leading to the points where the tunnel or the bridge would start.

Over 12,500 miles of new roads or railroads would need to be built. For the highway bridge to work, the first step would be to extend the current northernmost point of the Alaskan Highway in Fairbanks to the western shores of Nome, 250 miles away. Building a road between the two cities would mean spanning more than half the state of Alaska with a road through icy, desolate terrain.

The railway system in western Alaska is not much better.

And that’s not to mention the extensive railway or highway systems that would need to span Siberia as well. The Chukotka region of Russia is slightly larger than Texas, but only contains around 50,000 people. This means that existing infrastructure is almost nonexistent. The closest Russian railway to the Bering Strait is over two thousand miles away. The closest road is better, at only fifteen hundred miles, but it is unpaved.

This is when the proponents of the project step in again. According to some sources, the Russian government is planning to expand railway networks into the Siberian provinces.

A prime example: Moscow and Beijing started the construction of a high-speed railway line that will connect the two cities. This railway would measure about 4,340 miles (7,000 km) and would traverse the tundra of Siberia.

Dr. Hal Cooper is an infrastructure expert and one of the project’s most outspoken proponents. He claims that though the entire worldwide railroad network project will total over $1 trillion, “that’s as much as the U.S. will spend on the Iraq War, for which there will be no measurable benefit for anyone.”

Or, as The Atlantic magazine puts it, connecting the two continents brings together cultures with different civic values.

These opposing values have proven to be another barrier to the project. Though relations have thawed in the time since the end of the Cold War, they have recently regained an icy edge.

Environmental Challenges

But what often gets overlooked in the face of infrastructure, funding, and diplomacy is a megaproject’s effect on the environment. As the Beringea land bridge played an important role in the migration of humans and land animals all those thousands of years ago, the Bering Strait does the same for marine life today.

Sea mammals ranging from whales to seals depend on the Bering Strait for their migration patterns. Extensive construction and new obstacles, like bridge pillars or tunnel ventilation shafts, could disturb these patterns. This risks causing an unpredictable effect on the ocean food chain.

Fish populations in the Bering Strait area serve as a source of sustenance for the indigenous communities. These communities have lived in the area for thousands of years. Disturbing fish populations could upset the indigenous food source and disrupt their rituals.

Marine life wouldn’t be the only wildlife affected. Land animals and their habitats would also face disruption. New roads or railways, years of construction work, and increased transport through the region would all bring changes.

With that increased transport would come increased emissions. Changes like this would release significant pollution to an area largely untouched by modern infrastructure.

However, preemptive studies to examine the effects of the project on the surrounding wildlife and habitats could mitigate much of the feared damage. Altering the design of the bridge and tunnel to have as little impact on the land and marine ecosystems as possible would also lessen any negative effects. And for the construction process itself, using methods to help noise reduction and strategies to avoid soil erosion could help mitigate much of its impact.

Though this project faces many considerable obstacles and is decades away from being a reality, the idea has stuck around for over a century now. The Bering Strait connection has the potential to bring the economies, infrastructure, and cultures of not just two countries, but two continents closer together.

Key Takeaways

• The Bering Strait, just 53 miles wide, has been proposed for a railway tunnel or highway bridge.
• Historical proposals for a Bering Strait crossing date back to the late 19th century.
• The project faces significant funding challenges, with estimated costs ranging from $25 to $100 billion.
• Logistical hurdles include building over 12,500 miles of new roads or railways in remote, icy terrains.
• Environmental concerns involve potential disruptions to marine life migration patterns and indigenous communities.

Sources

• Original MegaProjects video: The Big Problem with a Bering Strait Crossing
• https://21sci-tech.com/Subscriptions/Spring%202007%20ONLINE/20_1-2_Bering_Strait.pdf
• https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/07/superhighway-bering-strait-new-york-paris/397370/
• http://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/trans-siberian-road/index.html
• https://www.readex.com/blog/russia-connection-historical-proposals-reestablish-land-link-across-bering-strait
• https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/economics/article/3103997/bering-strait-tunnel-pipe-dream-or-game-changer-us-russia-china
• https://digismak.com/the-peace-bridge-the-unfinished-megaproject-that-wants-to-unite-the-united-states-and-russia-since-the-19th-century/
• https://boingboing.net/2019/05/07/why-no-one-is-going-to-build-a.html#:~:text=It%20would%20be%20very%20expensive,of%20the%20English%20Channel%20tunnel
• https://www.scandinavian-architects.com/en/projects/view/architectural-design-concept-for-the-bering-strait-project-diomede-islands
• https://www.nps.gov/bela/learn/nature/climate-change.htm
• Hero image source by Vyacheslav Bukharov / openverse, by-sa.

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