The project also includes the construction of a road border crossing point on the border.Continue reading
“The light is already showing at the end of the tunnel!,” the Minister of Construction and Transport wrote in his recent Facebook post, revealing Hungary’s newest expressway tunnels.
Minister János Lázár posted that about the completion of a pair of tunnels for the M85 expressway, reports Világgazdaság. They are not short tunnels, as they are 780 meters long.
To ensure safe and accident-free traffic
The Minister stressed that
this is the first expressway tunnel in Hungary to be built purely as a public investment.
One of the biggest domestic road projects of the year, the Bécsi-domb (hill, nature reserve) tunnels are undergoing trial operation and shortly after being approved for traffic, 11 expressways will reach the border, compared to three in 2010.
In the case of the M85 expressway, however, this is only a possibility, as János Lázár also revealed that there is no construction on the Austrian side, therefore there is no agreement on the border crossing.
As reported earlier by Világgazdaság, the contractor for the tunnel on the final section of the M85 expressway is the SDD Consortium. The Ministry of Construction and Transport’s investment includes the construction of the 780-meter tunnel pair, the 4.2-kilometer four-lane road between the Fertőrákos junction and the border-crossing at Sopron (northwestern Hungary), and the construction of the Sopron bypass.
The total cost of the project, starting in October 2020, is HUF 53 billion (EUR 136 million).
The tunnels run in the northwestern part of Sopron and their construction was started with the aim of transferring the M85 expressway under the Bécsi-domb to the western side of main road 84. Preparations for this were made in the early 2000s, although it had to be redesigned afterwards. The tunnels’ original length was extended from 490 to 780 meters in March 2017, in order to obtain a more favorable environmental assessment.
When work started in summer 2019, the deadline for the opening of the tunnels was set for summer 2024. In other words, construction was on schedule. There is no news yet on when the new tunnels will be open to traffic, but once it is approved, it will be possible to travel at speeds of up to 110 kilometers per hour.
Via Világgazdaság; Featured image via Facebook/Lázár János