It is practically impossible in Norway to drive from one place to
another without making a mountain crossing or riding on a ferry across a fjord.
Those who’ve travelled Norway knows, how the beautiful country this is, but its
complex geography created by a maze of fjords, glaciers, and mountains meant
that several Norwegian communities remain isolated from one each other during
the long winter months. Amazingly neighbors may live less than a mile from each
other, but on opposite sides of the fjord or mountain, and that’s a world
apart. That was before Norway started building an extensive network of tunnels.
Therefore, if a mountain stands on the way, they will start to drill through
it. A fjord is too long to build a bridge? Then Go under? You know, Tunnels
make driving through the country much easier than taking circuitous routes
along mountains or ferry hopping.
There’re more than 900 road tunnels in Norway with total length
surpassing 750 km, and at least 33 undersea tunnels. According to some sources,
the numbers are even higher above one thousand. For a country the size of
Norway, that’s an awfully too many tunnels. However the longest of these
engineering phenomena is the Lærdal Tunnel. The Laerdal Tunnel is around 24.5km
long road tunnel, the longest in the world, connecting the villages of Lærdal
and Aurland, but basically linking the capital of Oslo to Bergen and the country’s
second-largest city of Bergen. You can easily said the records straight,
Laerdal Tunnel is the longest “road” tunnel. The true longest tunnel is the
Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland at 57 km, but it’s used only by trains.
In 1992, the government decided to build the Laerdal Tunnel, whey
realized that a reliable all-weather snow-free, fjord-free land connection was
needed between the two cities. The tunnel, which is one of many that lies along
the European Route E16, lets uninhibited flow of traffic while preserving the
alpine environment of the region. One of the major challenges faced by the
engineers was how to keep drivers alert through the 20-minute-long monotonous
drive. This was indeed very vital for drivers, who could lose concentration leading
to accidents. To break the monotony occasional slight curves were included
between straight stretches of the road, and at every 6 km interval is a large
cavern. The caves are meant to break the routine, providing a refreshing view
and allowing drivers to take a short rest. The caverns are also used as
turnaround points and for break areas to help lift claustrophobia.
Moreover a very special attention has been given to the lighting, and
only white light is used in the tunnel itself, the mountain caves are equipped
with blue and yellow light which gives one the illusion of driving into
daylight every 6 kilometers, and the golden light along the floor gives the
illusion of sunrise. Hence to keep the car driver from being inattentive or
falling asleep, therefore causing head-on collisions, each lane is supplied
with a loud rumble strip toward the center. Well, another major concern is
proper ventilation. High air quality in the tunnel is achieved in two ways, by
ventilation and purification. Very big fans draw air in from both entrances,
and polluted air is expelled through a single ventilation tunnel located
18kilometers from the Aurland end of the tunnel. The Lærdal Tunnel is the first
in the world to be equipped with an air treatment plant, situated in a 100-meter
cavern 9.5 kilometers from Aurland that removes both dust and nitrogen dioxide
from the tunnel air.
Trip to Norway - Prologue from
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