It is actually possible to build major new infrastructure. At least, the Swiss can do it.

The Gotthard rail link has taken 20 years to build, and cost more than $12bn (£8.2bn). It will, the Swiss say, revolutionise Europe’s freight transport.

Plans for a better rail tunnel have been around since the 1940s, but it was not until 1992 that Swiss voters backed their government’s plan to build a new high-speed rail link through the Alps…

For 17 years, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, more than 2,000 people have worked on the tunnel. There have been accidents: nine tunnel miners have died.

Pretty amazing. What infrastructure projects will the U.S. public support starting today that will not be ready for a generation? Like I said, the Swiss can do it.

I think tunneling is a key technology for the future for everything from transportation to water management, and eventually space colonization. The technology has improved a lot since we dug the first subway systems with shovels in the late 1800s. Now we use massive tunnel boring machines like the one shown in this article. But it’s still hard and expensive enough with our current technology that it’s not often the first technology we go to.