Under-river tube a mistake! Tunnel flood in Warsaw.

Dunno about you. but I regard the recent tunnel flood in Warsaw as symptomatic of the ill-fated effort to run a tube line under the Vistula riverbed. To avert potential hazards the cost of such a project is headspinning, and in our terrorist era the prospect of commuters stuck under the river is hardly a pleasant proposition. It would have cost only a fraction to run the line acorss one of the bridges and then let it go below ground on the opposite bank. Just not to be the typical Polish grumbler, praiseworthy is the fact that one of the new bridges will have a tramline running across. Unfortunately the £azienkowski and Świętokrzyski bridges do not. In so congested a city as Warsaw, public transport should be vigorously promoted and motor-vehicle traffic curtailed.

The subway tunnel option is the cheapest in fact. This has been widely discussed in press or tv. The cost of removing buildings/roads in Powiśle, in order to build a bridge would be far greater.

Yes, building a new bridge would be horrendously pricey. I meant running the tube line over one of the exisitng or under consruction bridges. They would only have to be reinforced a bit. That surely wouldn't be costlier than under the river drilling and a hell of a lot safer. Naturally, a few buildings might have to be remvoed when building the emergence approach and the descending route on the opposite bank, but that still seems to be a cheaper solution.

Of course; terrorism in Poland is rife.


Building a standing bridge on wet mud with no bedrock in strong-moving water with a steep rising and falling gradient that will allow the train (which weighs hundreds of tonnes, unloaded) to climb out of the ground and then go back down would be an immense engineering task. In contrast, there have been train tunnels under rivers for nearly 200 years:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thames_Tunnel

An open bridge would also necessitate completely different trains that were safe to use in an open environment (rain, wind, storms, snow) as opposed to the homogenous underground environment. And the idea of converting an existing bridge to a two-tier system is even more insane; each bridge is designed for a specific purpose, and any adaptation would be more costly than building a new bridge, with the added problem of shutting down an existing bridge for a few years; something that would cripple transport within the city even more than it is already.

Stick to propagating your unique brand of patriotism; you're obviously clueless about civil engineering.

Exactly!

You nailed it up until the point about clogging the fcuk out of the city's transport system: surely you have by now realised that in fact our leaders have a secret bet as to who can bugger that up more?!


You mean the brand which involves refusing to live in the country one claims to love and doing nothing at all to help said country?

Personally I'm wondering which PiS politician has been spouting similar nonsense to inspire the OP.

Indeed I hold no degree in civil enginerring and speak only as an interested and concerned obserrver. You may be right except for one thing. Around hte world underground systems are known to run part of the way at ground level in roofless stretches and somehow the elements (rain, etc.) are no obstacle. Re terrorism, it is not likley ot go away anytime soon and no-one is to say when and where it may crop of. Tube systems have above-ground (elevated) monorail network: cheaper, safer and more dynamic and modern looking than trams and buses.

Because, as I said, they will have used carriages designed for both under- and overground networks. Rolling stock designed for such a purpose is more expensive than single-purpose trains (purely under- or purely overground.)

Re terrorism, it is not likley ot go away anytime soon[/quote]

It's not likely to arrive any time soon either. And the location under the highest threat from terrorism is nothing so banal as a public transport tunnel.


Yes, the L-train system in many American systems can be praised for its "modern" look. And could never be criticised for rendering whole swathes of real estate as worthless due to the noise, reduced light levels, pollution and inherent crime. A perfect solution for the centre of downtown Warsaw...

Next time I go for a stroll along the leafy avenues of kamienicy in Powisle, I'll try to imagine a screeching rattling overhead train and think of you.

Elevation of a steel-rail tranbsport as in Chicago is no soltuion. I've spent time in Chicago and been in flats where the passing el rattled window panes, chandeliers and spoons empy coffee cups. A horrible racket. I was referring to a trackless monorail which is silent running. Check out:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monorail#Monorail_systems

Does the US embassy still make everybody who has applied for a visa wait in the same place outside the embassy at the same time every day?


Perfect if one lives thousands of miles away and almost never visits Poland.

And let us not forget who the bright spark was who decided on the location of the Powiśle metro station.
That was the PIS clone Marcinkiewicz who moved it from its original (and logical) location on ul. Dobra near BUW to under the Wisłostrady tunnels.

Which itself were put there by the first duck.

Not a mass-transit system. The current underground carries more than half a million people each day; Monorail systems are not able to carry anywhere near that capacity because they are so lightweight. The world's busiest monorail only carries a quarter of Warsaw's current underground capacity, which is why they're a niche attraction in theme parks, not a serious solution to mass transit in Central Europe's largest capital.

Based on that, a monorail just to cross the river would be a waste of time and money with no scope for future expansion. And extending the line east to west, overground, would be even more stupid considering the real estate factors that it would entail.

Lols, suicide bombing nuns !!!!!

Seriously,there have been underground tunnels running under the Thames in London for about 150 years now......even with a terrorist attack on the lines the whole thing about being under a river or under 50 metres of solid ground is pretty frikkin moot .

Its not like you can just dig up from a tunnel even if its not under a river is it?