Byzantine Port, Botched Buildings Put A Brake On Bosporus Link
Ancient ships and shoddy modern buildings have stalled Turkey’s $3-billion Marmaray railroad project under the Bosporus channel between the Asian and European sides of Istanbul. Engineers spent two decades planning the world’s deepest sunken tube tunnel, some 60 meters below water. But the critical path has been strewn with surprise obstacles beyond the engineers’ control.
Turkey began fulfilling a 19th-century vision of a railroad under the 1.4-km-wide Bosporus when it secured Japanese funding in 1998 and signed a construction contract four years ago. But a routine archaeological dig unearthed remains of a 1,000-year-old Byzantine port, halting work at Yenikapi, a key tunnel-access site.