Floating underwater tunnels being built in Norway
It is hoped that these submerged “tube bridges” will ease the congestion on ferries when it comes to transporting commuters from point A to point B. Image Norwegian Public Roads Administration
To ease the congestion in their local ferries, Norway has come up with a rather radical idea of building underwater tunnels to allow motorists to cross the nation’s bodies of water.
The project will make use of “submerged floating bridges” that are essentially floating tubes suspended from pontoon-like support structures 100 feet under the water. The tubes will have enough space for two lanes of traffic. Each pontoon will in turn be secured to truss or bolted to the bedrock for added stability, reports The Next Web.
Each tube can accommodate two lanes of traffic, one for each direction. Image Norwegian Public Roads Administration
One trip from Kristiansand to Trondheim, two cities 680 miles apart, will take as long as 21 hours due to multiple ferry trips to traverse the distance. The trip is made difficult largely due to the fjords and difficult terrain, factors that make ferries more viable over building bridges.
The $25-billion tunnel project cut travel time by half when completed in 2035 .
Being an archipelagic country, the Philippines could take some notes from this project to connect our many islands via submerged roads and railways. Alfred Bayle
