New shortcuts just dropped

Who doesn't love a good shortcut. Consider these fun, all-age examples...

• Gen X: remember Homer's secret underground Stonecutters tunnel to skip traffic?

• Gen Y: love the Marauder's Map from Harry Potter?

• Gen Z: surely Tate McRae and Sabrina Carpenter like shortcuts too?

Well here are four intriguing new shortcuts you didn't know, starting with...

1. 🇹🇭 Thailand Southern Land Bridge

This is a proposed new ~90km, $30B corridor linking Thailand's west and east coasts via a four-lane highway, double-track railway, and maybe also oil and gas pipelines. Oh, and the idea is to build new deep-sea ports at each end.

Why? Fans argue it could cut four-to-six days and ~15% off some shipping routes compared to going around Malacca.

And as wild as that sounds, it's a cheaper version of the centuries-old dream of digging a Kra Canal across the isthmus. Thailand's cabinet is due to endorse the land-bridge idea any day now, before pushing legislation and bidding towards a theoretical 2039 opening.

Foreign firms are already sniffing around given Bangkok is hinting at a lucrative PPP Net Cost model (50-year concession), though there are other reasons, too: one early sniffer is the China Harbour Engineering Company, reflecting Beijing’s interest in anything that solves the Malacca Dilemma (its fear of a US naval blockade in the event of a war).

And that Beijing interest is driving curiosity among others like India, Japan, and Singapore, each wary of ceding their own influence. The result is convenient for Thailand, which wants a diversified consortium so it can boost its own leverage but still stay non-aligned.

2. 🇨🇱 Chile's Ruta Austral

When your country looks like it got stretched on a medieval rack (4,300km long but skinny enough to see both the Andes and Pacific in parts), you'll need some big roads.

That's why Chile's new president (Kast) announced this $900M, 1,200km project in April, paving and bridging the remaining path down to Chile's southern Aysén region.

Why? It cuts the Santiago-Aysén freight time from 14 days down to seven, strengthens Santiago's hold on a resource-rich but remote region, and ends Chile’s long-running reliance on neighbouring Argentina to reliably reach distant parts of… Chile! Kast has already awarded contracts and hopes to have it all done by the time his term ends in 2030.

3. 🇦🇺 Australia's Outback Way

You'd think the Aussies have now made enough Mad Max sequels to understand the risks of outback driving, but they're doubling down via this 2,720km diagonal route across Australia's interior, marketed as "Australia's Longest Shortcut".

The route already exists but half of it is still gravel — once fully sealed (by 2032), it'll be only Australia's third fully-sealed east-west road!

But why? Charm. Adds a bit of charm (niche gag for our Aussie Intriguers). It'll also cut east-west freight time in half (from ~40 hours to ~20), reduce pressure on Australia's longer, busier, and more vulnerable coastal highways, and open new opportunities across that vast center: think tourism, mining, remote indigenous connectivity, and just a bit of ol’ fashioned nation-building for a continent-sized country.

4. 🇪🇸-🇲🇦 Strait of Gibraltar Tunnel

This proposed new ~60km tunnel (half underwater) would link Europe to Africa via a passenger and freight service between Spain's Punta Paloma and Morocco's Malabata.

If that sounds like a big deal, it's because it is, both in terms of engineering (Germans just wrapped the study), price-tag (~$20B), and as history’s first fixed Europe-Africa link.

But why? Morocco clearly likes the idea of new access into one of the world's largest economic blocs, while getting to position itself as Europe's gateway back to Africa.

As for Spain? It de-risks supply chains across agriculture, phosphates (fertiliser), and energy by cutting reliance on its slower, costlier, and more weather-dependent sea links.

Plus 30-minute crossings would unleash vetted, visa-holding visitors into Spain's tourism-dependent south, while offering leverage to keep Rabat cooperative on migration control.

This one is still in the early stages, and has plenty of critics over concerns like migration, but Madrid just approved another $2M for further studies. And even if Spain's shockingly handsome leader manages to push approval through next year, you'd be looking at an opening well into the 2040s.

Anyway, all this to say... Intriguers? The age of the shortcut is officially underway.

Sound even smarter:

• The Gibraltar Tunnel idea goes back decades, but was revived the same year FIFA picked Spain and Morocco (with Portugal) to host the 2030 World Cup.

• We’ve barely scratched the surface above, amid the many other intriguing shortcuts at varying stages, like Norway’s Stad Ship Tunnel, Iraq’s Development Road, plans to close the Panama-Colombia Darien Gap, and a handful of competing east-west links across Africa.