Comment by lemoncucumber
6 years ago
I've always found it kind of surprising that the Darien Gap has never been closed. I can only assume that if Panama and Colombia were rich countries rather than poor countries that it would have happened. People solved the engineering challenges required to build the Channel Tunnel and the Øresund Bridge, after all.
(Note that I'm not saying that it should happen or that it would be a good thing necessarily.)
The Øresund Bridge was discussed for a century before being built, and was deeply controversial.
It’s not just money, it’s a matter of government not having very good control over those northern areas of Columbia. Even if they built the road, it wouldn’t be safe to travel due to the density of smugglers and cartel activity in general.
Building (not to mention maintaining) a long road through a sparsely inhabited tropical marsh/swamp is pretty expensive and complicated, especially if you want to minimize environmental immpact.
The reasons are mosly two: -deforestation -blocking illegal drugs