The Knappe Tunnel () is a four-lane, twin-tube

motorway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...

tunnel in the city-municipality of

Bergen Bergen (, ) is a city and municipalities of Norway, municipality in Vestland county on the Western Norway, west coast of Norway. Bergen is the list of towns and cities in Norway, second-largest city in Norway after the capital Oslo. By May 20 ...

Vestland Vestland is a Counties of Norway, county in Norway. The county is located in Western Norway, and its administrative centre is Bergen, where the executive and political leadership is based. The County governor (Norway), County Governor is based in ...

county,

Norway Norway, officially the Kingdom of Norway, is a Nordic countries, Nordic country located on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. The remote Arctic island of Jan Mayen and the archipelago of Svalbard also form part of the Kingdom of ...

. The tunnel is part of County Road 557 and consists of the first and second stages of the four-lane motorway project called Ring Road West (Norwegian: ). The southern part of the tunnel goes under the Nordåsstraumen, a small strait connecting the lake Nordåsvatnet and the

Grimstadfjorden Grimstadfjord or Grimstadfjorden is a small fjord in the municipality of Bergen in Vestland county, Norway. The long fjord lies on the western side of the Bergen Peninsula, and it divides the Laksevåg and Ytrebygda boroughs of the city of Berg ...

. The tunnel was built in two stages. The first stage, from Dolvik in Søreidgrenda to Sandeide (with a branch heading east to Straume), started in August 2006 and was opened to the public on 10 September 2010. Stage two, from Sandeide to the southern tip of the lake Liavatnet, started in 1st quarter of 2011 and was opened to the public in 12 November 2015. There are two extra exits/entrances to the tunnel (other than the two endpoints of the tunnel). There is a branch that heads east off the main path of the tunnel to connect to the village of Straume, and another branch that connects to the village of Sandeidet/Varden. The first part of the tunnel is long, and the second segment is long. In total, the entire tunnel is long. The lowest point of the tunnel is under the Nordåsstraumen strait, reaching below sea level.

References

Subsea tunnels in Norway Road tunnels in Bergen 2010 establishments in Norway Tunnels completed in 2010 {{Vestland-geo-stub