After another closure of the Causeway on Friday as a safety precaution in response to the threat of Hurricane Juan, ideas of how to tackle the Causeway problems continue to be floated.

Lawyer and former Progressive Labour Party candidate, Phil Perinchief, agrees, as many do, that the Causeway needs to be replaced. And while he accepts Guilden Gilbert's call for a bridge to be considered as a possible alternative, Mr. Perinchief has his own suggestion - a tunnel linking Blue Hole Hill with the airport area.

He accepts people will scoff at his idea, including environmentalists, but he thinks such an idea deserves some consideration.

"My point with a tunnel is it is almost weather proof, but with the bridge you are fighting high winds," said Mr. Perinchief.

"In an emergency situation for ambulance, police, etc., a tunnel might be the ideal things because the weather would be above it."

Mr. Perinchief, who estimates he has had the idea of a tunnel for about ten years, has carefully thought out the idea. He has seen the convenience of tunnels in New York and the 'chunnel' linking Folkestone, England with Calais, France. That particular tunnel stretches some 32 miles across the English Channel but a tunnel under the Causeway would be only a few hundred yards.

"Because France and England jointly did it, the technology is there, and being a colony I'm sure Britain would look into that," said Mr. Perinchief.

"Britain are the ones who signed the agreement with the United States in the first place to take care of the current bridge. Maybe they need to look into it, share the cost, if not foot the bill (for a new structure)."

Mr. Perinchief, who works at the Attorney General's Chambers, was one of the lawyers involved in the Longbird Bridge maintenance negotiations after the Americans withdrew their Base presence from Bermuda.

"I was one of three lawyers who were negotiating the bridge, who was going to maintain it, who was going to replace it," said Mr. Perinchief.

"We were looking for them to replace the bridge and even then I was talking about the tunnel - maybe I had tunnel vision!"

Now, as well as the maintenance issues, comes concerns about the Causeway's ability to stand up to hurricane winds. On Friday it was closed for several hours because of safety concerns after Hurricane Juan threatened.

Mr. Perinchief says the tunnel need only go deep enough to allow marine traffic to pass over.

"About ten or 15 feet," he estimated.

"I checked with some fishermen and they said that most of the boats that they allow through right now only have a draft of about six to eight feet. I'm certainly going to call Dr. [Derrick Binns [Permanent Secretary for Works and Engineering and run it by him."

Already Mr. Perinchief has heard from the doubters after sharing the idea with others.

"You'll get those who are claustrophobic or who say 'well, a bridge would look nice' but it isn't about looks, it's about safety," he stressed.

"I intend to express my views, I'm going to take it to the Government level. It's been sitting with me for ten years at least."

For even longer than that he has also been thinking a monorail on the old railway trail is also something worth considering, at a time when heavy traffic on the Island's roads is a big concern.

Mr. Perinchief says Transport Minister Dr. Ewart Brown has "been vindicated" over his introduction of the fast ferries which met with much criticism initially. Many St. Georgians have welcomed an alternative form of transport into Hamilton over the last three weeks while the Causeway is being repaired. It is not uncommon to wait in line for up to an hour to cross the Causeway during peak periods.

"Fast ferries have proven their worth," said Mr. Perinchief, a St. David's resident. "Certainly we need fast ferries coming up from the east end. When we get those high winds that make it difficult you could have the monorail.

"In other words the transportation situation can be looked at in a far more expansive way. I just think we need to think outside the box. We all say cost but they haven't even priced it.

"As far as I'm concerned we must cast our minds as far as we can, come up with it, price it and if it is not feasible scrap it. But at least explore it."

Mr. Perinchief says the bridge idea would be his second choice behind the tunnel. Like Guilden Gilbert, who expressed his views last week, Mr. Perinchief also took photos of the bridge in Nassau recently.

"A bridge like that would be my second choice," he revealed.

"But even with a bridge we are still going to be fighting high winds that might impede traffic. A tunnel is more weather proof than a bridge and they could even determine whether a tunnel has greater longevity than a bridge.

"Some of those tunnels have emergency lanes where emergency equipment, even when the other traffic is there, can still pass through. You could even put video cameras down there so that you could see every inch of the tunnel, all the way through. It's not rocket science today."

He added: "People have said 'oh, I'm claustrophobic', but I say to them 'but have you travelled in an elevator or an airplane and when you go to New York you go through the Lincoln Tunnel and when in London underneath the Thames'. They said 'I never thought about that'.

"After awhile you won't think about this one, it will probably last about three minutes. I get from the environmentalists things about the seabed but I tell them we have a Causeway sitting on coral.

"I've been thinking about this for years, but since September 5 I've been thinking about this real seriously. Maybe we could dedicate that tunnel to the people who lost their lives."

There are various suggestions on what to do with the Causeway and Paget resident Allan Davidson thinks it could be restored and a bridge between Coney Island and Ferry Reach built to offer an alternative route into St. George's. It would, however, mean more traffic through the narrow road of Ferry Reach which has become quite built up residentially over the last few years.

"It would be a secondary route, they would have to repair the Causeway, obviously," said Mr. Davidson.

"This would be a big benefit to St. Georgians who would be able to get back and forth to town without the hassle. If anything happens to Long Bridge Bridge or the Causeway in future you would have an alternative route.

"I've been putting forth that suggestion for years and nobody has really taken too much notice of it. This Fabian problem has brought it home that we do need an alternate route."