Public get chance to walk under Shannon for a day as tunnel takes shape

AN OPEN day with a difference will take place in Limerick later this month.

People will be able to travel, on foot, under the River Shannon.

Sections of the €570 million tunnel highway, which will form part of the city’s southern ring road network, will be open to members of the public.

The tunnel, when finally completed, will be 900m long. But the entire Southern Ring will comprise a four-lane highway, 9.7km long.

The new road will consist of 11 bridges, six underpasses, four interchanges — and the tunnel.

The works are due for completion in two years’ time.

The tunnel highway will be able to take more than 40,000 vehicles a day and will divert up to 25,000 vehicles daily from the city centre.

It is being built under a public-private partnership project and will be tolled, with cars paying €1.60 and lorries €4.10.

The construction of the tunnel involves the dredging of more than 800,000 tonnes of silt from the river. Six million tonnes of rock are being put on the river bed to form a foundation for the tunnel.

The tunnel parts — five huge concrete tubes — will be floated and sunk onto riverbed foundations.

Sections of road leading into the tunnel area already completed will be open to the public on July 26.

Visitors will also be able to get a close-up view of five 100-metre immersed tube tunnel units before they are floated out and sunk into a pre-dredged channel across the river.

That operation will be carried out in August.

Work on the approach roads into the tunnel got under way in August 2006, when then Transport Minister, Martin Cullen turned the first sod on the project on the north side of the river at Coonagh.

National Roads Authority chairman Peter Malone said the tunnel road will greatly assist the economic growth of the entire mid-west.

He added: “This project is a catalyst for Limerick city and county, Shannon Airport and Co Clare to continue their collective growth in all areas of enterprise.”

The new tunnel will be the standard required height for tunnels throughout Europe.