The Mersey Tunnel The new Mersey Tunnel, which the King
is to open next Wednesday, is the largest under-water road-tunnel in the world. Its length considerably exceeds two miles, and its width allows for four lines of traffic throughout. Its whole lay-out is that of by fax the most ambitious struc- ture of its kind designed and executed since petrol-driven road-transport assumed its present importance. As such it is likely to set the example for not a few successors ; and one cannot forbear remarking that its location is not in the United States or in Sovietland or anywhere on the Continent of Europe; but in England and in Lancashire. Tw•o difficult problems, which are not encountered in a railway tunnel in at all the same way, are those of ventila- tion and of fire protection. To guard against petrol- fumes the new structure includes six separate ventilating stations, all on the grand scale. To lessen fire-risks there is a fire-station every fifty yards. To prevent collisions the whole length of roadway is divided by studs into four " lanes," one leading each way for fast and slow traffic, respectively. When one thinks of the congested Black- wall and Rotherhithe tunnels under the Thames, with their two " lanes " of traffic only and every vehicle com- pelled to crawl at the pace of the slowest, it may seem a pity that some of the money which the L.C.C. is squan- dering on Vandalism at Waterloo Bridge was not spent in modernizing one at least of these thoroughfares.
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