Norway wants to build "floating tunnels"

[roadtester]

Article about plans in Norway to build "floating tunnels" for water crossings.

http://thenextweb.com/insider/2016/07/2 ... r-tunnels/

Has this already been done anywhere?

[Burns]

The design of those looks interesting but the obvious concern is shipping. I'd imagine they'd have to be significantly below the surface to avoid the potential for off-course ships to run into them.

[kit]

10 hours for a 680 mile mile journey is very optimistic when the highest motorway speed limit is 110km/h (68mph)!

[Pendlemac]

10 hours for a 680 mile mile journey is very optimistic when the highest motorway speed limit is 110km/h (68mph)!

It's likely that the tunnels would allow a more direct route as the ferry crossings are a fair way inland while I assume the tunnels would be nearer the coast.

[si404]

Has this already been done anywhere?

The article says "world's first". Then again, this is old news (I've known about these plans for at least 5 years) so perhaps a pinch of salt is required.

The design of those looks interesting but the obvious concern is shipping. I'd imagine they'd have to be significantly below the surface to avoid the potential for off-course ships to run into them.

Of course and the tunnel would be 100ft down (and the floats far enough apart - like bridge supports) to allow shipping. The fjords are 1000s of ft deep, hence why this isn't an undersea bridge, or a normal tunnel or bridge (a floating bridge would work, providing it's not like this one for obvious shipping reasons - but a tunnel would be easier when looking at scale as a bridge would be very long and heavy).

[si404]

10 hours for a 680 mile mile journey is very optimistic when the highest motorway speed limit is 110km/h (68mph)!

They recently upgraded an alternate route and removed a ferry while adding a large amount of distance. Further upgrades will allow the route to stay inland rather than heading in and then out, giving a big cut in that 680 mile figure (20 of which were added by this recent reroute of the E39) to be more like 650.

It's likely that the tunnels would allow a more direct route as the ferry crossings are a fair way inland while I assume the tunnels would be nearer the coast.

Where the new alignments are to be nearer the 'coast' (fjords are part of the coast, and underwater tunnels will be undersea) it's by maybe a mile or two. Where the new alignments are to be further inland, they are significantly so.

[Truvelo]

Unless I'm mistaken it's already possible to travel between the two cities in 10 hours via Oslo.

[si404]

Unless I'm mistaken it's already possible to travel between the two cities in 10 hours via Oslo.

According to Google, not quite, though that could just be the roadworks on the E18 and traffic near Oslo. Also 813km is way shorter than the 1132km of the E39 (which Google has taking almost exactly twice as long as via Oslo). But the key massive long floating tunnel bits are about the Bergen-Stavanger bit, which obviously has no alternate route.

Even Bergen-Trondheim is shorter going inland, though the difference is less (629km vs 668km), so maybe that traffic would use the E39 once completed (and shortened a bit).

[Peter Freeman]

New video (I think it's new … ?) about the B1M/E39 project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCT-FurFVLQ

[Vierwielen]

10 hours for a 680 mile mile journey is very optimistic when the highest motorway speed limit is 110km/h (68mph)!

As the crow flies, Google Earth gives the distance as 570 km (which is via Oslo and over the mountains), while a series of strioaght lines that include the southern tip of Norway, Stavanger and Bergen come in at about 900 km. The 680 mile (1050 km) probablyincludes diversions around fijords.