News / Bristol Underground
Tunnelling for Bristol underground ‘relatively easy’
Digging tunnels for the planned Bristol underground railway network would be “relatively easy” according to a tunnelling expert.
Martin Knights says that construction of a mass transit system would pose “no more challenges than any recent tunnelling that’s taken place in London”, including the recently completed Elizabeth Line.
Knights has more than 45 years directing and managing all aspects of civil engineering and infrastructure, with particular technical emphasis on tunnelling and subsurface urban engineering projects.
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In an interview with New Civil Engineer, Knights said that it “would be relatively easy to use tunnel boring machines (TBMs) as they would be able to support the ground quite well”.
He added: “What’s been done with Crossrail is definitely achievable in other big cities in the UK.”
Knights said that detailed ground investigation could overcome the challenge of uncharted coal measures, while Bristol could look to the Dublin Metrolink as a blueprint for crossing rivers and digging tunnels to the same depth.
The funding, however, for Bristol’s multi-billion pound project could be what prevents underground trains running beneath our city in the foreseeable future.
“The political will of the mayor will be an important ingredient in getting the project off the ground,” Knights said, seemingly referring to West of England mayor Dan Norris, who is on the record saying that Bristol will not get an underground.
“They will ask if they can afford it and weight that against the risks of not doing it. It’s feasible from an engineering perspective but the problem is to get the funding going.
“I saw early figures estimating £4bn and that seems to be in the right sort of order but often with these projects the costs can just keep going up…
“The engineering is all solvable. There will be challenges but it’s all technically feasible.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
Read next:
- Bristol underground would cost £18bn, secret report reveals
- Rees weighs up advantages of underground versus trams
- Metro mayor’s ‘lack of ambition’ on Bristol underground ‘staggering’
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