WASHINGTON (TIP): Plans for a new high-speed transport corridor that could potentially link London and New York by rail and superhighway have been unveiled. The idea, dubbed the Trans-Eurasian Belt Development (TERP), would see a high-speed railway and motorway built from Eastern Europe, across Siberia and over the Bering Strait to Alaska. Vladimir Yakunin, the head of Russia‘s state railways, told a meeting of the Russian Academy of Sciences that the project could link existing networks and supercharge global economic growth. It would also feature oil and gas pipelines to connect Russia’s petro-industries more directly to the rest of the world. “This is an inter-state, inter-civilization, project. It should be an alternative to the current model, which has caused a systemic crisis. The project should be turned into a world ‘future zone’, and it must be based on leading, not catching, technologies,” he said, according to the Siberian Times newspaper. The plan was developed by the transport boss alongside the rector of Moscow State University, Viktor Sadovnichy and academic Gennady Osipov.

Alaska is already connected to the US by superhighway through Canada, along the Alaksa Highway — though there is no passenger rail network. The highway links to US interstate network which can take motorists to all corners of the US and beyond.

In eastern Europe the EU is drawing up plans for a high-speed rail corridor to connect the Baltic states to western Europe’s rail network — which runs through the Channel Tunnel to London. North American passenger rail are comparatively undeveloped. Plans drawn up by President Obama to develop high- speed rail corridors across the US .