For those fantasizing such a project as a fixed link between Vancouver Island and the Lower Mainland, there will never be a tunnel in our lifetimes, nor even our great-grandkids' lifetimes, for a few logical reasons.

1. Most obviously, similarly to the Chunnel under the English Channel, it would be have to be limited to electric rail traffic only, just passengers and no cars or trucks unless transported on rail cars.

2. If we compare conditions, the deepest part of the Chunnel is 80 metres; the Strait of Georgia reaches a depth of almost five times that.

3. The cost of the Chunnel was $25 billion and it serves populations on the United Kingdom side of 60 million or so, about 460 million in the European Union. The population of Vancouver Island is a measly 750,000.

4. Further to all of this, my own semifertile imagination and rambling fantasy sees that to create a feasible rail grade to a depth of 400 metres, digging would have to start in Tofino and come out in Chilliwack.

Need any more convincing?

Graeme Roberts

Brentwood Bay