One reason cited for EuroTunnel's problems is a combination of lower-than-expected revenues from cross channel traffic:

The crisis at Eurotunnel has its origins in the construction of the channel tunnel, completed in 1994. The tunnel cost about 14bn euros ($17.7bn; £9.8bn) to build, but traffic has never been nearly as heavy as was originally forecast, hurting Eurotunnel's revenues.

Bloomberg notes that EuroTunnel is straining under a massive debt load of $11.4 Billion, Approximately 2/3 of the initial cost of the project. Reuters adds that the "engineering masterpiece" got off to a slow start, possibly dampening some of the initial enthusiasm for it. Still, this tunnel's problems seem modest in comparison to those with Boston's Big Dig, also known as the Central Artery/Tunnel Project (CA/T), a project I helped to pay for.

The Big Dig is the single most expensive highway project in American history. Although the project was estimated at $2.5 billion in 1985, when the last major highway section opened in December 2003, over $14.6 billion had been spent in federal and state tax dollars as of 2006.[citation needed] The project was replete with delays, arrests, escalating costs, leaks, poor execution and use of substandard materials. The Massachusetts Attorney General is demanding contractors refund taxpayers $108 million for "shoddy work."

And is that weren't bad enough, the expensive poorly-built tunnel is now closed, because of a recent fatal collapse:

The connector segment leading to the Ted Williams (I-90) tunnel is currently closed to deal with the collapse of a ceiling section that killed a woman (Milena Delvalle) riding as a passenger in the tunnel. "I don't think anyone can feel the tunnels are safe, given what happened this morning," Gov. Mitt Romney told a New England Cable News reporter after touring the accident site.

Finally, everyone knows by now that a state of war now exists between Israel and the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority in Gaza, a war that now seems to be spreading north into Lebanon. The most immediate precipitating event for the hostilities in Gaza was the capture of an Israeli solider by Hamas militants who tunneled their way into Israel and attacked an Israeli guardpost. The Washington Post reports that "Hamas political leader Khaled Mashaal demands a prisoner swap, but Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says that would be a 'major mistake.' " For now Olmert seems content to pursue the military option.

As for the Big Dig, the Governor Mitt Romney has launched a broadside against Turnpike Authority chairman Matthew Amorello, accusing him of :

a "continuing and ongoing pattern of mismanagement" in the 15-year project, which has been plagued by cost-overruns, leaks, criminal investigations, delays and scandals.

The Massachusetts attorney general's office is treating the collapse and resulting death as a criminal matter:

The state attorney general's office issued subpoenas to companies involved with the Big Dig as part of a criminal investigation. Federal regulators, state police and private investigators hired by the MTA have also launched probes.

And in Europe, talks between the Chunnel operators' efforts to avoid bankruptcy have collapse have failed. Eurotunnel "is now forced to place itself under the protection of the Commercial Court of Paris.”

Taking refuge in the French courts; death and prosecution in New England; Israel drawn back into recently-abandoned hello holes, all because of tunnels. I hope these problems are neither signs of the times nor metaphors for the collapse of political, commercial, or legal structures nor harbingers of worse to come. On a more positive note, maybe there's a Knight at the end of the tunnels.

Tags: eurotunnel | euro tunnel | Israel | big dig">Big Dig | gaza | Palestine | bigdig