The Stormwater Management And Road Tunnel or better known as ‘SMART Tunnel’ is a storm drainage and road structure in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, and a major national project in the country. The 9.7 km tunnel is the longest stormwater drainage tunnel in Southeast Asia and the second-longest in Asia. Such a proud architecture got built.
The main objective of this tunnel is to solve the problem of flash floods in Kuala Lumpur and also to reduce traffic jams along Jalan Sungai Besi and also Loke Yew flyover at Pudu during rush hour. There are two components of this tunnel, the stormwater tunnel, and the motorway tunnel. It is the longest multi-purpose tunnel in the world. Other than the ‘SMART Tunnel’, these are other tunnels that have got listed as 10 of the world’s greatest tunnels ever built.
1) Gotthard Base Tunnel (Switzerland)
Picture: Railway Technology
The Gotthard Base Tunnel is a railway tunnel through the Alps in Switzerland. It opened on 1 June 2016 and full service began on 11 December 2016. With a route length of 57.09 km, it is the world’s longest railway and deepest traffic tunnel and the first flat, low-level route through the Alps. It lies at the heart of the Gotthard axis and constitutes the third tunnel connecting the cantons of Uri and Ticino, after the Gotthard Tunnel and the Gotthard Road Tunnel.
2) Channel Tunnel (England and France)
Picture: Institution of Civil Engineers
The Channel Tunnel is a 50.46-kilometer railway tunnel that connects Folkestone with Coquelles beneath the English Channel at the Strait of Dover. It is the only fixed link between the island of Great Britain and the European mainland. At its lowest point, it is 75 meters deep below the sea bed and 115 meters below sea level. At 37.9 kilometers, the tunnel has the longest underwater section of any tunnel in the world and is the third-longest railway tunnel in the world. The speed limit for trains through the tunnel is 160 kilometers per hour. The Channel Tunnel is owned and operated by the company Getlink, formerly “Groupe Eurotunnel”.
3) Laerdal Tunnel (Aurland, Norway)
Picture: Geotech Rijeka
The Lærdal Tunnel is a 24.51-kilometer-long road tunnel connecting the municipalities of Lærdal and Aurland in Vestland county, Norway, and is located approximately 175–200 kilometers northeast of Bergen. The tunnel carries two lanes of European Route E16 and represents the final link on the main highway connecting Oslo and Bergen without ferry connections and difficult mountain crossings during winter. It is the longest road tunnel in the world, succeeding the Swiss Gotthard Road Tunnel.
4) Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (Tokyo)
Picture: Pinterest
The Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line is also known as the Trans-Tokyo Bay Expressway, is an expressway that is mainly made up of a bridge-tunnel combination across Tokyo Bay in Japan. It connects the city of Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture with the city of Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture and forms part of National Route 409. With an overall length of 23.7 km, it includes a 4.4 km bridge and a 9.6 km tunnel underneath the bay—the fourth-longest underwater tunnel in the world.
5) Eisenhower Tunnel (Colorado)
Picture: Colorado Department of Transportation
The Eisenhower Tunnel is a dual-bore, four-lane vehicular tunnel in the western United States, approximately 60 miles west of Denver, Colorado. The tunnel carries Interstate 70 under the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. With a maximum elevation of 11,158 feet above sea level, it is one of the highest vehicular tunnels in the world. The tunnel is the longest mountain tunnel and the highest point on the Interstate Highway System. Opened in 1973, the westbound bore is named after Dwight D. Eisenhower, the U.S. President for whom the Interstate system is also named. The eastbound bore was completed in 1979 and is named for Edwin C. Johnson, a governor and U.S. Senator who lobbied for an Interstate Highway to be built across Colorado.
6) Spiralen Tunnel (Drammen, Norway)
Picture: Dangerous Roads
The Drammen Spiral is a tunnel near Drammen, Norway. The tunnel is 1,650 meters long and in the shape of a helix, with six rising circles, in the same style as a multi-story parking lot. Each rotation of the helix rises 73 feet, with a diameter of 230 feet. The tunnel emerges at a summit 600 feet above the town on Skansen Ridge, where there are parking facilities and a cafe.
7) Guoliang Tunnel (Henan Province, China)
Picture: Peapix
The Guoliang Tunnel is carved along the side of and through a mountain in China. The tunnel links the village of Guoliang to the outside through the Taihang Mountains which are situated in Huixian, Xinxiang, Henan Province of China.
8) SMART (Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia)
Picture: Amusing Planet
It begins at Kampung Berembang lake near Klang River at Ampang and ends at Taman Desa lake near Kerayong River at Salak South. The project is led by the government, including the Malaysian Highway Authority (Lembaga Lebuhraya Malaysia, LLM) and the Department of Irrigation and Drainage Malaysia (Jabatan Pengairan dan Saliran, JPS) and also a company joint venture pact between Gamuda Berhad and Malaysian Mining Corporation Berhad (MMC).
9) Bund Sightseeing Tunnel (Shanghai)
Picture: YouTube
The Bund Sightseeing Tunnel is a tunnel connecting the Shanghai Bund and Pudong in Shanghai, China. The line has a total length of 646.7 meters, with two stations and 14 cars (as of 2010). Construction started in 1998 and trial operation began in October 2000. The tunnel is a single-hole double-lane tunnel, passing through the upper part of the Metro Line 2 tunnel near the end of Puxi. Various flickering lighting effects are created inside the tunnel.
10) Seikan Tunnel (Japan)
Picture: Unmissable Japan
The Seikan Tunnel is a 53.85 km dual gauge railway tunnel in Japan, with a 23.3 km long portion under the seabed of the Tsugaru Strait, which separates Aomori Prefecture on the main Japanese island of Honshu from the northern island of Hokkaido. The track level is about 100 m below the seabed and 240 m below sea level. The tunnel is part of the standard gauge Hokkaido Shinkansen and the narrow gauge Kaikyō Line of the Hokkaido Railway Company (JR Hokkaido)’s Tsugaru-Kaikyō Line.
Sources: CNN.
