Sluiskil Tunnel under the Gent–Terneuzen Canal opened
The swing bridge at Sluiskil in the Netherlands' province of Zeeland crosses the canal from Gent to Terneuzen. It is a bottleneck for road traffic: The bridge opens on average 23 times a day for a total of up to five hours in order to enable ships to pass. This led to long waiting times for traffic south of the Westerschelde Tunnel, which opened in 2003. After four years of construction the twin-bore Sluiskil Tunnel opened in May 2015, which now enables an uninterrupted flow of traffic.
Project Overview
The road section south of the Westerschelde Tunnel and the motorway E34 in the north of Flanders have until now only been accessible over a swing bridge across the Gent canal between Terneuzen and Sluiskil. Shipping on the canal means that the bridge opens up to 23 times a day for a total of five hours, with road traffic being totally blocked during these times. The new section of two tubes with two lanes each will provide an uninterrupted link between the E34 motorway in the north of Flanders and the Westerschelde Tunnel in the south of the Netherlands. Financing for the...