Stad Ship Tunnel

Historie

The Stad Ship Tunnel is a proposed canal and tunnel to bypass the Stad peninsula in Selje Municipality in Sogn og Fjordane county, Norway. The peninsula is one of the most exposed areas on the coast, without any outlying islands to protect it from the weather. The section has traditionally been one of the most dangerous along the coast of Norway.Two paths have been proposed: one 1800m long from the Eide farm at the inner part of the Moldefjorden through the Mannseidet isthmus to the Kjødspollen, the narrowest but innermost place of the peninsula. The other option is a slightly longer tunnel from the Skårbø farm to the Fløde farm through the central part of the peninsula.In 2013, the tunnel was included for the first time in the National Transport Plan. was set aside for it in the budget. The tunnel will be 162 ft high and 118 ft wide, able to handle ships of up to 16000tonnes, large enough for the Hurtigruten coastal express ships. The water will be deep in the tunnel. The cost is estimated to be, and construction will start in 2018 and is expected to open in 2023.Terje Andreassen is the project manager and he states that construction is expected to start, at the earliest, in 2019.HistoryThe first proposal was in an article in Nordre Bergenhus Amtstidende newspaper in 1874, and shortly afterwards an article in the same newspaper proposed a railway tunnel across the peninsula. The latter would have allowed the boats to be raised onto wagons and to be hauled across, and would cost only half as much.