On the harbor promenade, under a wind that smelled of salt and diesel, people squinted at the giant screen. The minister smiled, the engineers nodded, the drone shots lingered over an empty stretch of ocean where, one day, a train was supposed to dive under the waves and come out on another continent. Applause rose, a few flags fluttered, and the caption at the bottom quietly spelled it out: construction confirmed, funding locked in.
Behind me, a man in a worn jacket muttered, “There goes another decade of our taxes.” His friend shrugged. “Or maybe that’s the future.” The crowd watched the animation of a sleek underwater tunnel as if it were a movie trailer, not a multi‑billion public commitment.
The champagne cork popped offstage.
The first drill bit is already on its way.
When a dream tunnel dives into taxpayers’ wallets
On paper, the continent-connecting underwater rail tunnel looks irresistible. High-speed trains gliding beneath the ocean, cities suddenly brought within a morning’s commute, borders turning into footnotes on a timetable. Politicians call it a “civilizational leap”, investors talk about “the new Silk Road under the sea”.
Then you look at the bill. Public budgets groan under soaring energy costs, hospitals count every bed, schools leak when it rains. Still, governments have just signed off on a project whose price tag already runs into the hundreds of billions, before a single meter of tunnel is lined. That’s the moment the applause on the harbor promenade starts to sound slightly nervous.
Behind the visionary CGI, there is a much less glamorous spreadsheet. Engineers estimate more than 20 years of construction, with costs that could easily double, judging from past megaprojects. The Channel Tunnel between the UK and France went 80% over its original budget. The Big Dig in Boston? Almost five times the initial price.
This new tunnel plans to stretch much farther, cross deeper seabeds and survive harsher currents. Each kilometer requires custom drilling rigs, pressure-resistant segments and a permanent army of safety inspectors. Every delay means thousands of workers still on payroll, still burning fuel, still renting equipment. The “colossal public money sink” label didn’t appear from nowhere; it comes from people who have watched these nightmares unfold before.
What divides opinion is not just the money, it’s the promise tied to it. Supporters say the tunnel will slash flight emissions, boost trade and knit continents into a single daily reality, with students booking cross-ocean weekend trips like cheap intercity trains. Critics answer with a cold question: who will actually afford the tickets, and when?
Beneath the debate lies a quiet tension between short-term needs and long-term bets. One side sees a once-in-a-century chance to rewire geography. The other sees crumbling local infrastructure patched with duct tape while billions vanish under the sea. *Both can’t be equally true at the same time.*
How big promises get sold, and why people still fall for them
The playbook always starts the same way: an announcement in grand scenery, glossy renderings, and a carefully timed leak of numbers that look just manageable. “Only X billion over Y years,” officials say, like a gym membership spread over monthly fees. By the time the real figures arrive, the public is already emotionally invested.
Engineers I spoke to describe a subtle pressure to present “optimistic but credible” projections. Translation: cut every margin until the model stops screaming red. Risk buffers get shaved, geological surprises are treated as unlikely, and political calendars creep into technical decisions. You don’t cancel a historic tunnel six months before an election. You push the groundbreaking ceremony forward and pray that the seabed behaves.
There’s also the psychology of national pride. Remember the first time you saw photos of a space rocket launch and felt that punch in the chest — that sense of, “We did this”? That’s what ministries are banking on. They wrap megaprojects in language of destiny and belonging: “We will not miss the train of history,” “Our children deserve this future.”
One coastal town along the planned route is already selling “Gateway to the Tunnel” mugs, though the nearest drilling site is still only a dot on a map. Real estate flyers promise “future rail-linked neighborhoods,” quietly ignoring that the tunnel might not open for two decades. Let’s be honest: nobody really reads the small print about risk scenarios when the dream looks that good.
The experts warning about a money sink are often the least telegenic people in the room. They bring obscure charts about cost overrun probabilities and talk about “reference class forecasting” — comparing this tunnel to dozens of similar projects worldwide. Their conclusion is blunt: most megaprojects bust their budgets and underdeliver on traffic.
Yet they rarely win the public narrative. A 400-page impact study loses every time against a 40-second animation of a train diving into a blue, glassy ocean. And there’s a quiet fatigue at play too. Citizens already fight rising rents, complicated tax forms, and broken buses. When another giant project appears, many simply sigh and think, “They’ll do what they want anyway.” That resignation is fertile ground for grand, expensive dreams.
What taxpayers can watch for when visionary projects hit the news
You may not sit in the cabinet room, but you still have levers. The first is to hunt for three words every time a megaproject is announced: “who pays when”. That means checking how much comes from general taxation, how much from tolls or tickets, and how much depends on private partners who might vanish when profits lag.
A practical gesture: when figures appear, look for the low, medium and high scenarios. If only one number is shown, with no range or margin, that’s a red flag. Ask whether maintenance and safety upgrades are included, or just the bare bones of construction. Tunnels age. Seawater doesn’t care about press conferences.
Another trap is the “job creation” argument repeated like a mantra. Yes, tens of thousands of positions will appear around the underwater tunnel. The question is: for how long, doing what, and at what cost per job compared to repairing existing networks? It’s not cynical to ask whether the same money could create more durable work rebuilding bridges, retrofitting buildings, or modernizing regional lines.
If you feel vaguely guilty for doubting a big, beautiful idea, that’s normal. The story is designed to make skepticism look unpatriotic or small-minded. Yet asking where your tax money goes does not make you anti-progress; it makes you part of the democratic equation. **Blind trust is not the same thing as collective ambition.**
At some point, the debate stops being abstract and walks into your kitchen. That’s when taxes creep up a little, or a promised local project quietly disappears from next year’s budget because “funds have been reallocated to strategic infrastructure”. You notice your train station roof still leaks while officials post selfies in orange vests beside a giant offshore drilling barge.
“Our models show that if this tunnel overruns by just 30%, we’ll be paying the debt service for half a century,” one transport economist told me. “That’s three generations financing a hole in the seabed they may never use.”
- Watch the phrasing – Words like “game-changer” and “no-brainer investment” often hide soft numbers.
- Compare past promises – How did the last big project in your region fare on cost and deadlines?
- Follow independent audits – Not just government press releases, but reports from courts of audit or watchdog NGOs.
- Track opportunity costs – What smaller, less glamorous projects get postponed once the megaproject starts?
- Stay present after the ribbon-cutting – Real costs emerge during operation, not just during construction.
A tunnel between continents, a gap between stories
The underwater rail tunnel has already done one thing perfectly: it has turned a line on a map into a campfire story people argue about late at night. For some, it’s the proof that we still know how to do big things together, that humanity can push steel and concrete into the dark and come out the other side with new connections. For others, it’s déjà vu of promises that left them with higher bills and little to show in their daily routines.
Somewhere between those two stories lie the facts: a project of staggering technical courage, glued to a financial gamble that ordinary taxpayers quietly underwrite. The drills will spin regardless of social media storms, yet the way we talk about them still matters. It shapes what will be tolerated when the budget moves from blue to red.
Maybe the real question is no longer “Tunnel: yes or no?” but “What price are we truly willing to pay for symbols of progress, and who gets to draw the line?” That conversation is just beginning, at kitchen tables and in crowded trains that still wait every day on aging, squealing tracks.
| Key point | Detail | Value for the reader |
|---|---|---|
| — | Understand that megaproject budgets are often intentionally optimistic and politically timed. | Gives you a more realistic lens before you emotionally buy into a promise. |
| — | Focus on who pays, when, and what gets postponed once funds are locked into a tunnel. | Helps you see the hidden trade-offs behind shiny announcements. |
| — | Follow independent audits, not just speeches and renderings of underwater trains. | Equips you to question, share, and vote with better information. |
FAQ:
- Question 1Is the underwater rail tunnel really going ahead, or is it still just a proposal?The engineering consortia and governments involved have now confirmed the construction phase, signed major contracts and started preparatory works offshore, so it has moved beyond the concept stage.
- Question 2Why do experts call it a potential “public money sink”?Because similar megaprojects have a history of massive cost overruns, underestimated maintenance needs and lower-than-promised usage, which can leave taxpayers paying debts for decades.
- Question 3Will ordinary travelers actually be able to afford tickets when it opens?Early projections suggest premium pricing at first to recoup costs, with the risk that the tunnel mainly serves business and high-income travelers before prices gradually fall.
- Question 4Could the same money have been spent on smaller, more local projects?Yes, and that’s at the core of the controversy: many analysts argue that upgrading existing rail, roads and public services would bring faster, more evenly spread benefits.
- Question 5What can citizens realistically do about it now that construction has started?You can still follow the audits, support watchdog groups, press local representatives on transparency, and push for clear limits on overruns and strong public reporting over the project’s entire life.
