EU provides €1 million for Tallinn-Helsinki tunnel feasibility study

The EU has allocated approximately one million euros for conducting a feasibility study for a railway tunnel between the capital cities of Estonia and Finland, reported Finnish daily Helsingin Sanomat.
The feasibility study must determine whether or not it would pay off to build an undersea tunnel connecting Tallinn and Helsinki, what technical options are available for its construction as well as the project’s potential impact on the environment.
Safety issues will also be examined, along with expected profitability, and alternatives such as further developing ferry traffic instead will be considered as well.
The budget for the FinEst Link project is 1.3 million euros, 75 percent of which will be provided by the Central Baltic Program 2014-2020 and the rest by Finland and Estonia themselves, said Olli Keinanen, an expert at the Helsinki-Uusimaa Regional Council.
The feasibility study must be completed by February 2018.
Funds were also allocated from the EU program to the Helsinki-Tallinn FinEst Smart Mobility Project as well on Tuesday, the budget for which is 1.8 million euros, 75 percent of which will be provided by the EU.
FinEst Smart Mobility is a project that seeks to improve transport flows between Tallinn’s Old City Harbour and West Harbour in the Jätkäsaari district of Helsinki, as well as improve passengers’ customer experience.
The project includes various smart mobility experiments including the offering of park and rides and control of heavy traffic. It is also planned to improve connections from the cities’ respective harbors to Helsinki-Vantaa airport and Tallinn’s ring road.
Partners in this project are the cities of Helsinki and Tallinn and their subsidiaries as well as the Estonian Road Administration.
Editor: Editor: Aili Sarapik
Source: BNS