Boris Johnson’s English Channel bridge: an engineering expert’s view
Wanda LewisEmeritus Professor, Civil Engineering, University of Warwick
Boris Johnson, the UK foreign secretary,
has proposed building a bridge across the English Channel to connect England and France, to complement the rail tunnel that opened in 1994. Leaving aside the political and financial challenge of such a project, would it even be feasible to build such a long structure over the open sea and one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world?
For spanning long distances we use either cable stayed or suspension bridges, because they are light compared to conventional bridges and provide large areas unobstructed by pylons.