Marmaray: A tunnel connects Europe with Asia

13 November 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Union for the Mediterranean Reading Time:  6 minutes

Marmaray Project © R1410/cc-by-sa-3.0

Marmaray Project © R1410/cc-by-sa-3.0

Marmaray is a rail transport project in the Turkish city of Istanbul. It comprises an undersea rail tunnel under the Bosphorus strait, and the modernization of existing suburban railway lines along the Sea of Marmara from Halkalı on the European side to Gebze on the Asian side. The procurement of new rolling stock for suburban passenger traffic is also part of the project. Construction started in 2004, with an initial target opening date of April 2009. After multiple delays due to historical finds, the first phase of the project opened on October 29, 2013.   read more…

The Atlantropa Project

20 February 2013 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: General, Berlin Reading Time:  8 minutes

Atlantropa project © Devilm25/cc-by-3.0

Atlantropa project © Devilm25/cc-by-3.0

Atlantropa, also referred to as Panropa, was a gigantic engineering and colonization project devised by the German architect Herman Sörgel in the 1920s and promulgated by him until his death in 1952. Its central feature was a hydroelectric dam to be built across the Strait of Gibraltar, which would have provided enormous amounts of hydroelectricity and would have led to the lowering of the surface of the Mediterranean Sea by up to 200 metres (660 ft), opening up large new lands for settlement, for example in a now almost totally drained Adriatic Sea.   read more…

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