Tunnels Under Major U.S. Cities Proposed

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30945, 29 December 1965, Page 12

Tunnels Under Major U.S. Cities Proposed

(N.Z.P. A. -Reuter — Copyright) BERKELEY (California), December 28.

A Nobel prize-winning scientist has proposed that a honeycomb of tunnels be built beneath America’s major cities for use as nuclear bomb shelters in case of war, or as underground superhighways in peacetime. Dr. Eugene Wigner, of Princeton University, a leading physicist and a top

American civil defence planner said the tunnel system would cost 38,000 m dollars, but would save millions of lives in an atomic attack.

The physicist reported that blueprint for the mammoth tunnel system—probably the greatest construction project in the history of mankind — was being drawn up by the Atomic Energy Commission. Dr. Wigner revealed the plan yesterday at a civil defence symposium during a session of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. All of the tunnels would be inter-connected, Dr. Wigner said, providing high-speed underground peace-time motor traffic between the major cities. In the cities there would be enough entrances so that almost all residents would be able to enter them within 10 minutes of an alert.