Turkey Opens Bolu TunnelRecep Tayyip Erdogan and Romano Prodi, the prime ministers of Turkey and Italy, on 23rd January inaugurated the right carriageway (Istanbul-Ankara direction) on the last section of the Anatolian highway, which includes the Mount Bolu tunnel that will cut travelling time between Istanbul and Ankara to just over three hours. The Ankara-Istanbul direction is expected to have its official opening in three months from now. Construction of the Bolu tunnel, half way between the two cities, came to a close after 5,030 days. Work on the tunnel began in 1993, but construction was delayed because of a lack of funds and an earthquake in November 1999 that devastated the Bolu region. The tunnel crosses the North Anatolian fault and the earthquake measured 7.2 on Richter scale caused substantial damage to the tunnel. Visit www.tunnelbuilder.com/rockreinforcement/edition2pdf/page91.pdf and http://gees.usc.edu/GEES/RecentEQ/Turkey_Duzce/Reports/Tunnel/tunnel.htm The tunnel has been built as part of the Gümüsova-Gerede highway within the trans-European motorway project by Astaldi. The total cost of the tunnel is expected to be around USD300 million. It has twin 17 m-wide bores and will accommodate three lanes of traffic in each direction. The tube is in Istanbul-Ankara direction 2,871 m long and in the other direction 2,954 m. Click here for more. Visit www.astaldi.comAstaldi has been operating since 1985 on providing the design and construction of a 114 km section of the Istanbul-Ankara motorway, also known as the Anatolian motorway. The company completed and handed over Section 1 (30 km) in 1992 and Section 3 (65 km) in 1994 to the motorway operators. At present, work nears completion of Section 2 (25 km) called, the Bolu mountain crossing. Asphalt surfacing still needs to be completed on some sections and inside the second bore, and all the necessary safety, ventilation, fire fighting, video monitoring and other equipment is in the final process of installation. 05/07.