The idea of a round-the-world connection between the Americas and Afro-Eurasia has long been on the minds of various individuals and media outlets.
A Bering Strait crossing is a hypothetical infrastructure project that would span the relatively narrow and shallow Bering Strait between the Chukotka Peninsula in Russia and the Seward Peninsula in the US state of Alaska.
With the Diomede Islands lying almost directly between the two peninsulas, the Strait could be spanned by either a tunnel or a bridge.
The names used for the proposals have included “The Intercontinental Peace Bridge”, “Eurasia–America Transport Link”, and the “AmerAsian Peace Tunnel”.
In April 2007, Russian government officials told the press that it would back a US$65 billion (£50.3 billion) plan by a consortium of companies to build a tunnel. However, no concrete plan has materialised as of yet.
The straight distance between Russia and Alaska is just over 51 miles. If building bridges and using the Diomede Islands, the straight distance over water for the three parts would be 22.4 miles, 2.4 miles and 22.9 miles – a total of 47.6 miles.
The concept of an overland connecting goes back to the late 19th century. William Gilpin, the first governor of the Colorado Territory, envisioned a vast “Cosmopolitan Railway” in 1890, linking the entire world through a series of railways.
Two years later, Joseph Strauss, who went on to design over 400 bridges and served as the project engineer for the Golden Gate Bridge, put forward the first proposal for a Bering Strait rail bridge. The project was presented to the government of the Russian Empire, but it was rejected.
In 1904, a syndicate of American railroad magnates proposed a Siberian-Alaskan railroad from Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska through a tunnel under the Strait and across northeastern Siberia to Irkutsk via Cape Dezhnev, Verkhnekolymsk, and Yakutsk – totalling about 3,100 miles of railroad, plus over 1,900 miles in North America.
The proposal was for a 90-year lease and exclusive mineral rights for eight miles each side of the right-of-way. Tsar Nicholas II gave permission for the American proposal in 1905.
Its cost was estimated at $65 million (£50.3 million) and $300 million (£232 million) including all railroads, according to a New York Times article from 1906. These hopes were dashed with the outbreak of the 1905 Russian Revolution, followed by World War One. It was debated by officials but eventually turned down in March 1907.
Nazi Germany planned to create a wide-gauge railroad, called Breitspurbahn, which aimed to connect the cities of Europe, India, China and ultimately North America via the Strait. This project, too, was never built.
According to a report in the Beijing Times in May 2014, Chinese transport experts had proposed building a roughly 6,200-mile high-speed rail line from northeast China to the US. The project would include a tunnel under the Bering Strait and connect to the contiguous US via Wales, Alaska.
Proposals to build a crossing predate the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the war. It is not known how those events have affected strategic concerns relating to the proposed crossing, giving Russia access to North America. Even before the invasion, commentators on the proposed link flagged strategic military concerns as a factor in any decision to build the crossing.
On top of the fact that creating a concrete plan seems unfeasible, there are also several weather-related challenges. The depth of the water is a minor problem, with the strait no deeper than 55 metres, comparable to that of the English Channel. The tide currents in the area are also not severe.
However, the route is just south of the Arctic Circle and the area is plagued by long, dark winters and extreme weather including average lows of -20C and temperatures approaching -50C during especially cold snaps. This would mean that construction work would likely be restricted to just five months of the year, during the summer.
Although there are no icebergs in the Bering Strait, ice floes up to 1.8 metres thick are in constant motion during certain seasons, which could produce forces on the order of 44 meganewtons (4,500 tonnes-force) on a pier. On top of this, roads on either side would likely have to cross tundra, requiring either an unpaved road or some way to avoid the effects of permafrost.
