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Tromsø’s tunnels – how many are there and when all started

Posted by dominte_mircea on

Visited Tromsø for the second time in 2023, and spent some of 2024 as well there, since our New Year’s Eve was celebrated in Svalbard, but what consolidate my astonishment regarding this city, Paris of the North, as they call it, is mainly the underground network of tunnels. Experience it in January 2023, but also in December 2023. So wanted to find out more about it. But the Norwegians don’t brag too much about these kind of constructions, as in this country they are pretty normal. Anyway, I have tried to understand better how I can find more information about them, so I have wrote on Instagram to “Visit Tromsø” and they were kind enough to indicate the names of each, so I could find more information on the Internet.

13 kilometers of tunnels under Tromsø ground and waters

Unfortunately, all the information was only in Norwegian, and since I don’t speak the language, I’ve used the 2024 privileges and translated roughly the details. And since I am pretty sure I am not the first non-Scandinavian Language speaker who got curious about them, I am presenting, briefly, the main information about each:

  • Langnestunnelen was opened in… 1988 (!), but initially was a private road – wow – but in the end was taken over by the municipality and offered to free traffic in 2000. The length of this tunnel is 1.711 meters, and between May 2006 and October 2007 it was closed for heavy maintenance and expansion work were undergone, so the facility grew in height and width, so now the limit is 4.6 meters and the speed limit is 70 km / h.

  • Breivikatunnelen (Breiviktunnelen) is in service from 1992, becoming the second beneath Tromsøya, and the longest underground tunnel from the island / city with 2.679 meters. This facility runs mainly north the Tromsø bridge, and with a roundabout the direction is switching south through Sentrumstangenten. Interesting is that for this specific tunnel has a cover inside in concrete, in the form of rectangular concrete elements;

  • Sentrumstangenten became the most recent tunnel from the large network under Tromsø, being opened on 6th of August 1999, and measuring 1.741 meters, slightly more than Langnes. It was also reinforced between July and October 2007, being reopened in the exact same time as Langnestunnelen for traffic. Its exit, once taking off from Breivika is exactly in front of Polaria, a very nice place in Tromsø. Also, Sentrumstangenten intersects with Langnestunneln through another roundabout. The total estimated cost of building this was 122M NOK (in today’s money, around 11M EUR);

  • Tromsøysundtunnelen is the absolute pearl of the crown, because not only that it consists more than half of the total network, but it is not underground, but… underwater! It was created and inaugurated in 1994 as an alternative for the famous Tromsø bridge that couldn’t cope anymore with the traffic continuously increasing, comparing to its original design from the ’50, when it was designed to connect Tromsøya to Tromsdalen, the suburb where the famous Arctic Cathedral lays. It consists of two completed separate tubes, one to mainland of 3.360 meters long, while the return to Tromsøya direction is a bit longer to 3.500 meters. It goes as deep as 102 meters in the lowest point, and the speed limit, under the water, as a one way, is up to 80 km/h. Between 2015 and 2017, both lines were subjected to improving work. It is very interesting that during 16 years, this was a one-of-a-kind facility in the whole Norway, by 2010, when the Opera tunnel was opened in Oslo.

Conclusions

I talked about the roundabouts that connect the underground tunnels, and it is important to mention that the infrastructure from Tromsø is very well organized, and consists, then, of around 13 kilometers of fine tunnels, that offer a great services for around 60k inhabitants, considering Tromsø, Tromsdalen and some other immediate surroundings. Pedestrians and cyclists are not allowed in any of the tunnels, but, of course, since the car traffic is mostly redirected underneath, it is plenty of room for those who want to explore the surface and, of course, without having much pollution as a challenge.