(kus) The Europagarten tunnel is open to motor traffic. Head of Transport Klaus Oesterling, Michaela Kraft, Head of the Office for Road Construction and Development, and Thaddäus Zajac, Managing Director of Aurelis Real Estate GmbH & Co. KG, opened the structure at an official press event on December 16. During the event, those present rode together in a bus through the nearly 400-meter-long tunnel section from the west portal under Tel Aviv Square towards the east portal in the direction of the city.
"With the tunnel under the Europagarten, we can provide the residents and visitors of the Europaviertel with an important element for seamless traffic development. The quality of the entire quarter will be increased enormously as a result," said Klaus Oesterling, head of the transport department, with pleasure. Michaela Kraft explained, "The commissioning of the tunnel means that traffic can now flow, and the time of crawling along side roads is over." The Europagarten tunnel now connects the long-completed sections of Europa-Allee continuously from Güterplatz to Straße am Römerhof. This means that through traffic will disappear from Pariser Straße.
Aurelis has developed the entire Europaviertel West area, where the Europagarten tunnel is located. The structure was built by ARGE Tunnel Europagarten GbR, consisting of Wayss & Freytag Ingenieurbau AG, Düsseldorf, and DÜRR Group GmbH, Weinstadt, on behalf of Aurelis. The work took around 23 months and was carried out under joint project management by the Office for Road Construction and Development of the City of Frankfurt and Aurelis. "We have completed a major project here over the past two years. Thanks to the good cooperation with all parties involved, we were on budget and on schedule in all construction phases. As a result, we were also able to transfer the tunnel to the city on the agreed date and now open it to motor traffic," said Thaddäus Zajac, Managing Director of Aurelis.
Around 99,000 cubic meters of soil were excavated, 30,000 cubic meters of concrete were used and 6,300 tons of reinforcing steel were installed for the construction of the Europagarten tunnel. The two outer tubes of the tunnel are intended for car and truck traffic. The road construction and development authority is responsible for the construction of these two tunnel tubes. The future urban railway line will be integrated into the middle tube. This extension through the Europagarten tunnel will take place at the beginning of 2020 via the Frankfurt transport company.
Landscaping work is currently underway for the approximately 60,000 square meter Europagarten located above the tunnel structure. These are expected to be completed by mid-2017. The plan is to put the third tunnel tube into operation for the light rail system in 2022
