Russian Official Proposes Road That Could Connect London To NYC 226
An anonymous reader writes There's great news coming out of Russia for epic road trip lovers. Russian Railways president Vladimir Yakunin has proposed building a highway that would reach from London to Alaska via Russia, a 13,000-mile stretch of road. "This is an inter-state, inter-civilization, project," the Siberian Times quoted Yakunin. "The project should be turned into a world 'future zone,' and it must be based on leading, not catching, technologies."
Re:Real porpose of the road (Score:4, Interesting)
Except for the fact that a robust national highway system is a key factor in fostering and supporting economic growth.
People also used to question why we needed links between LA and NY.
It's not about people wanting to drive their families.
It's about the economic support and stimulus that such infrastructure provides.
China has already learned this lesson, having observed how it benefited our country and helped fuel our greatest period of prosperity and growth. China began its massive interstate (interprovince i guess is more accurate) highway project a little more than a decade or two ago, and in the space of 7 years had more highway miles than the US. and the results have been dramatic, spurring economic activity far inland where prior to the highways there used to be little or none. the majority of economic activity was clustered around the seaports and only as far inland as the roads reached. with a modern highway system constructed the potential reach of freight, and the volume of freight the roads had the capacity to handle, was increased by several orders of magnitude, and it's been pivotal in the expansion of their economy.
As for Russia, there is economic activity on the east (largely based around exporting oil and other resources), and economic activity on the west, but there is little in between and the two areas of activity are currently tenuously linked at best, mostly by rail. More capacity and capability to move people and goods between them would be very beneficial to the country.