Yeah, I had the same thought.

"There’s not anything like this in the world"

Dunno, these renderings look like the the things I drive through every year when I go hiking in the Alps.

It looks cool, and I'm sure it's a huge undertaking with lots of engineering involved, but neither the problem nor the solution are unique.

Do those tunnels also have to deal with California level earthquakes ?

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also the rock shed in big sur: https://www.discover-central-california.com/rain-rocks-rock-...

I think you drive thru one in original Need for Speed game.

What kind of earthquakes do you get in the Alps ?

https://maps.app.goo.gl/tErrSoQY5sCcsHLM9

Built in 1978. We're about to do another on the A83 Rest and Be Thankful (the old road has a very steep section, like 1-in-3 switchbacks, and then a big flat bit at the top that you'd be pretty damn thankful for if you were on foot).

In this Google Streetview pic you can see the catch netting that mostly works, and masses of roadworks where they're reinforcing it further up. It's a total pain in the arse basically every time it rains.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/gvnaFDdtCdkz1hNK9

Yeah, this is very common in the Norwegian mountain passes, of which we have many.

That's what I thought. Rockfall galleries are a staple in the Alps. If you haven't driven in Switzerland, you are in for a treat.

Fun to "normalise" - the UK, for example, has both the recent London underground extensions and the London Sewer projects that have figures on tap for large tunnels + extras.

This specific "tunnel with windows" is $400 m USD quoted in toto for a 675-foot avalanche resistant rock shed.

In Yosemite they're cutting through the edges of hard rock - as opposed to the much softer soils under London and the Thames, and they're making an impact shock resistant structure exposed to daily heating and cooling as opposed to relatively zero shock resistant tunnels with far less of a temperature cycle.

For a Yosemite tunnel the length would be greater and the cutting challenges greater (rock V soil).

Apples, Oranges.

You might be better served looking to European rock shed construction of a similar scale - the civil engineering aspects would be similar.

The Gotthard Base Tunnel cost roughly $10 billion and goes 70km through the Alps. $400 million for a rockfall gallery seems high, but what do I know.

400m now... after cost overruns 2billion.

The UK spent 100m GBP on a 900m tunnel. Rather than protecting cars from rocks, this one protects trains from bats (or vice versa really) so structural requirements are presumably less stringent. It's weirdly pretty though.

So fun fact, when learning Chinese I always thought it was weird that America gets to be “meiguo” beautiful country. Like how would the Chinese know America was beautiful, maybe the Americans described their own country this way? Or is mei guo just a rough cognate for Meri-Ca ?

But later I found a footnote that suggested the use of mei here is reflexive, in meiguoren, “people who find themselves to be beautiful” and that makes a lot more sense to me :)

Exceptionalism.

Revenge for Pavel Chekov claiming in Star Trek that Whisky, among other things, was a Russian invention. It was his running gag that Russia did it either first or best.

If it's near milk that's over 113 million gallons!

I don't know if that's better or worse than the black screen I looked at for ten seconds before deciding that the web page is either broken or blocking non-US traffic.

NoScript can fix that for you. 15 third-party JS domains dropped on that site. No banners or overlays.

Today I learned that building a tunnel is facism

the linked article doesn't want to be read by myself so this question may be daft. still, may I inquire as to your proposed relation between the thread subject (conceptually, tunnel building) and fascism ?