[wmanley]

I visited it last year. It’s 2.4km long and at its highest point the Eiffel Tower could fit under the road. Remarkably the construction cost was only €394 million.

For comparison the planned 4.2km Lower Thames Crossing has already cost £1.2bn (€1,400 million) just for the planning phase with nothing built. The French know how to build.

[futurix]

While our construction costs are indeed ridiculous, this number is incorrect. It hard to decipher which £1.2bn figure you are actually talking about - but none of them are for just planning (for reference: the contract for the northern connecting highways and the contract for the actual tunnelling are both for a similar amount of money; the total spend as of 2025 is also around the same amount but it includes initial payments on all contracts etc).

[wmanley]

I got the 1.2B from the Beeb: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0mrm84wg4ko.amp

> Plans for the 14.5-mile (23km) route were approved in March after a 16-year process that has already cost £1.2bn.