Preliminary boring and excavation have begun on Canal Istanbul, something Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has described as one of his “crazy projects." Opponents agree with that assessment.

The massive project will connect the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea, which the Bosporus Strait already does. But the new canal is designed to alleviate congestion in the strait. The waterway is expected to cost $17 billion, though some estimates run much higher. The channel will measure around 45 kilometers (28 miles) in length and 150 meters (490 feet) in width, and will run between Istanbul’s Arnavutkoy-Avcilar districts. Boring began Jan. 9.

Ankara seems determined to execute the project, which will include two container ports to be constructed at both ends of the canal. The Black Sea port will be 4.8 kilometers long with a logistics compound of some 3,706 acres. The project will be integrated with Istanbul's third airport, currently under construction, which the government says will be the world's largest. Two yacht marinas will be built — one for 200 boats at Kucukcekmece Lake and one for 860 boats at Sazlidere. Government officials say the project will be completed in five years and will have an economic life of 100 years.

Turkey says the project is an unavoidable necessity to reduce shipping traffic through the Bosporus. Commercial and military naval traffic pass through Turkey’s Dardanelles and Istanbul’s Bosporus in conformity with the 1936 Montreux Convention, which was designed to regulate traffic according to norms of “freedom of seas” principles and demands of that period. When that convention was signed, annual traffic through the Bosporus was 3,000 vessels.