Tunnel OverviewIf you take a tiny country like this, you'll not find so many tunnels as in the Faroe Islands. We started to dig the first tunnels back in the 60s, so today we have around 25 tunnels in the Faroe Islands. We are actually moving from where we were, a group of islands, to have one island where we all are connected. This one is actually the longest one; it is 10.8 km long.Current ProgressNow we are in the sand tunnel; it's a sub-tunnel between Uhsand and Stowe. We are standing at the deepest point in it; we are on minus 150 m. We have removed about 1 million cubic meters of solid rock to go under the FS and is one of the 18 islands in the Faroe Islands. The population is around 1,200 to 1,300 people. It's been quite isolated. Sandos seem to be more like the Ferro Islands, used to be 15-20 years ago. Of course, the tunnel will change that; it will be a part of the mainland.
A lot of people travel back and forth to the mainland because the jobs are in the main area. It can be very difficult in the wintertime because of the weather and the rough sea. You spend a lot less time traveling, and an errand that will take you 6 hours out of the day will now take you maybe half an hour. I think that the tunnel will change a lot for us because we do expect a lot more tourists, and we can already see now that we do have a lot more bookings.Population TrendsFor many years, one of our biggest challenges in the Faroe Islands has been that the population has decreased, but now it is slowly starting to get better. We have seen a lot of interest in buying houses here. Our biggest hope is that we will get young people here because we have been missing often a whole generation of people. Suay has experienced five to six decades of decline. After the tunnel started, the population was stabilized, and now we see a small growth. It's been about connecting people and connecting places living on islands as we do, isolated in the middle of the North Atlantic. Mobility is key.Infrastructure InvestmentWe have been investing heavily in infrastructure, first in the beginning in boats, ships, and ferries connecting towns, villages, and islands, and afterwards, of course, roads and tunnels. It's a huge amount. This is a mega project to see an island get this kind of investment; it is quite unique. Per capita, it's by far, I think, the biggest infrastructural investment in a tunnel. As far as I know, you could ask if it's economically viable, but for us, it makes a lot of sense. We have one of the strongest economies in the world. Part of our nation building is actually to become closer together.
There are people who feel that that's too much money to spend on infrastructure as opposed to money that could be spent on health or education, and so on. So there is an ongoing debate. There is a lot of money to invest in 1,300 people, but that's also one of the ideas behind this country is to have people living in all the different places of the Faroe Islands.
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[Music]Future PlansIt's twice the project. We now have a route, and we are working on the financial plans of the project. When or if that tunnel will be done, around 99% of the people in the Faroe Islands will be connected into one road system and one society.YouTube transcript reformatted at textformatter.ai follows.
Interesting