en.Wedoany.com Reported - The city of Wuppertal in Germany is about to start the refurbishment of the Kiesberg road tunnel. The approximately 1-kilometer-long road tunnel, opened to traffic in 1970, was Europe's first highway tunnel with a double-deck design, featuring two lanes in one direction on the upper level and two lanes in the opposite direction on the lower level. The tunnel connects the Wuppertal-Sonnaborn A46 motorway interchange with southern Wuppertal, and the project is managed by the road authority of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Kiesberg road tunnel has been in operation for over 50 years, and its structure and safety equipment suffer from multiple issues. Inadequate waterproofing leads to structural water ingress, moisture, damage to concrete and reinforcement, and ice formation in winter. The prolonged damp environment has also caused malfunctions in control cabinets, cables, and technical systems. Since the 1970s, safety requirements regarding fire protection, ventilation, and emergency evacuation have changed significantly. The only way to fully refurbish the road tunnel is to close it to traffic.
The refurbishment works include sealing the tunnel from the outside using foil lining and a new water-retaining inner shell, removing the lower-level floor slab and the ceiling slab between the two levels, and installing a new roadway deck. The cross-section will also be adjusted according to traffic forecasts, providing one lane per direction with narrow shoulders, and upgrading the lighting, ventilation, safety technology, and control systems. The upgraded ventilation will allow trucks to pass through again. Although the tunnel was designed to accommodate approximately 25,000 vehicles per day, it is forecast to handle 15,000 vehicles per day. Other tasks involve bridges, portals, retaining walls, drainage, and rainwater retention basins, and also include replacing the L 70 overpass at Viehhofstraße. The entire project is expected to take two years.
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