ISTANBUL: President Recep Tayyip Erdogan will on Tuesday open the first ever road tunnel underneath the Bosphorus Strait in Istanbul, the latest project completed in his plan of transforming Turkey’s infrastructure.
Turkey in October 2013 opened the Marmaray rail tunnel underneath the iconic waterway, the first link beneath the waters that divide Europe and Asia.
But from Tuesday it will be possible for the first time in history to drive underneath the Bosphorus due to a project aimed at relieving congestion in the traffic-clogged Turkish mega city.
Erdogan is expected to drive himself to make the first journey from Europe to Asia in the Avrasya (Eurasia) Tunnel along with Prime Minister Binali Yildirim after the opening at 1100 GMT.
The tunnel required an investment of $1.2 billion (1.15 billion euros), including loans of $960 million, and will reduce driving time for the route from up to 2 hours to 15 minutes.
It was built by a consortium consisting of private Turkish construction company Yapi Merkezi and South Korea’s SK Group.
The project comprises a 5.4 kilometre (3.5 mile) tunnel, with the portion beneath the Bosphorus 3.4 kilometres long.
The two-storey tunnel was built with a special tunnel boring machine which had a daily progress speed of 8-10 meters (26-32 feet) on average.
According to the designers, the earth dug in the project would be enough to fill 788 Olympic pools, the cement poured would fill 18 stadiums, while the iron used could build 10 Eiffel Towers.
With Istanbul lying on an active seismic zone, the tunnel has been designed to withstand a 7.5 magnitude earthquake.
It would be undamaged even if Istanbul saw a once-in-500-year earthquake. And the tunnel could resume operation “with slight maintenance works” in the event of a once-in-2,500-year earthquake.
