Has there ever been a proposal to bridge the Indonesian islands?

[Peter350]

Has anyone ever come up with a proposal to connect the Indonesian islands via bridges? Imagine what it would be like to drive uninterrupted from Malaysia over the strait of Malacca to Sumatra, then over to Java, Bali and the other islands east of there before eventually reaching East Timor.

And if you were really ambitious, you could have a fixed crossing from East Timor all the way to Darwin in Australia. It’ll be a tremendous engineering feat which will probably never happen in a million years, but would certainly make somewhere like Melbourne a contender for the “Furthest place you can drive from the UK”.

[si404]

The 5km of Bali to Java might have been, as it's not that far and there's a decent amount of cross-traffic. Certainly it is the most obvious and likely proposal - by a long way - if the number of over-sea inter-island bridges in Indonesia should double (Java and Madura have a bridge).

The nearly 30km between Java and Sumatra is possible, but even if they loved linking islands like Japan or Norway or the Faroes, the volcanic issue would be very hard to overcome.

East of Bali, the population is much lower (and even Bali is nowhere near as dense as Java), and the initial gap to Lombok is nearly 40km, with most of the others bigger than that. Not going to happen.

Perhaps a bridge between the two most populated western Riau islands?

[jimboLL]

Has anyone ever come up with a proposal to connect the Indonesian islands via bridges? Imagine what it would be like to drive uninterrupted from Malaysia over the strait of Malacca to Sumatra, then over to Java, Bali and the other islands east of there before eventually reaching East Timor.

And if you were really ambitious, you could have a fixed crossing from East Timor all the way to Darwin in Australia. It’ll be a tremendous engineering feat which will probably never happen in a million years, but would certainly make somewhere like Melbourne a contender for the “Furthest place you can drive from the UK”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunda_Strait_Bridge

[Euan]

Has anyone ever come up with a proposal to connect the Indonesian islands via bridges? Imagine what it would be like to drive uninterrupted from Malaysia over the strait of Malacca to Sumatra, then over to Java, Bali and the other islands east of there before eventually reaching East Timor.

And if you were really ambitious, you could have a fixed crossing from East Timor all the way to Darwin in Australia. It’ll be a tremendous engineering feat which will probably never happen in a million years, but would certainly make somewhere like Melbourne a contender for the “Furthest place you can drive from the UK”.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunda_Strait_Bridge

Ah but the current Indonesian government does not seem too keen on building a bridge between Sumatra and Java, so unlikely to happen in the short or even medium term.

[trickstat]

AIUI the Straits of Malacca are very busy for shipping so a bridge there would be particularly challenging.

[Burwellian]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunda_Strait_Bridge

Ah but the current Indonesian government does not seem too keen on building a bridge between Sumatra and Java, so unlikely to happen in the short or even medium term.

Probably rightly so, given Krakatoa is in that strait.

[Euan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunda_Strait_Bridge

Ah but the current Indonesian government does not seem too keen on building a bridge between Sumatra and Java, so unlikely to happen in the short or even medium term.

Probably rightly so, given Krakatoa is in that strait.

That is true, especially given that the tsunami occurred fairly recently it will serve as a reminder about the natural hazards which would make it potentially unsustainable to bridge the two islands. Even though I doubt it would happen, if any two Indonesian islands were ever to be connected by a bridge it would probably be Java and Bali rather than any other two islands.

[Euan]

AIUI the Straits of Malacca are very busy for shipping so a bridge there would be particularly challenging.

I think parts of the Straits of Malacca would need to be closed during the construction of a bridge and the detour would be quite long for the shipping traffic. This is probably one of the biggest challenges involved in bridging the English Channel as well, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

[trickstat]

AIUI the Straits of Malacca are very busy for shipping so a bridge there would be particularly challenging.

I think parts of the Straits of Malacca would need to be closed during the construction of a bridge and the detour would be quite long for the shipping traffic. This is probably one of the biggest challenges involved in bridging the English Channel as well, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

My guess is that Singapore would consider the disruption to shipping to be a price not worth paying for a bridge. Shipping must form a substantial part of their economy while international air links are probably considered more important than road ones.