The Maastunnel is a

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

the Netherlands , Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...

, connecting the banks of the

Nieuwe Maas The Nieuwe Maas (; "New Meuse") is a distributary of the Rhine River, and a former distributary of the Meuse (river), Maas River, in the Netherlands, Dutch Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland. It runs from the confluence of th ...

. About 75,000

motor vehicles A motor vehicle, also known as a motorized vehicle, automotive vehicle, automobile, or road vehicle, is a self-propelled land vehicle, commonly wheeled, that does not operate on rails (such as trains or trams), does not fly (such as airplanes ...

and a large number of

cyclists Cycling, also known as bicycling or biking, is the activity of riding a bicycle or other types of pedal-driven human-powered vehicles such as balance bikes, unicycles, tricycles, and quadricycles. Cycling is practised around the world for pur ...

and

pedestrian A pedestrian is a person traveling on foot, by wheelchair or with other mobility aids. Streets and roads often have a designated footpath for pedestrian traffic, called the '' sidewalk'' in North American English, the ''pavement'' in British En ...

s use the tunnel daily, making the Maastunnel an important part of Rotterdam's

road network A street network is a system of interconnecting lines and points (called ''edges'' and ''nodes'' in network science) that represent a system of streets or roads for a given area. A street network provides the foundation for network analysis; for e ...

. Building commenced in 1937 and finished in 1942. There was no official opening ceremony, but the Dutch held an unofficial opening ceremony in secret without

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

participation. Construction of the tunnel was preceded by years of animated discussions. Although there was agreement as to the need for a new permanent connection between the two banks of the Nieuwe Maas, there was lack of agreement as to whether it should be a

bridge A bridge is a structure built to Span (engineering), span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or railway) without blocking the path underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, whi ...

or a

. A tunnel proved to be more attractive financially than a bridge, largely because of the great height a bridge would have needed to avoid hindering the passage of

ship A ship is a large watercraft, vessel that travels the world's oceans and other Waterway, navigable waterways, carrying cargo or passengers, or in support of specialized missions, such as defense, research and fishing. Ships are generally disti ...

s from the

port of Rotterdam The Port of Rotterdam is the largest seaport in Europe, and the world's largest seaport outside of Asia, located in and near the city of Rotterdam, in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. From 1962 until 2004, it was the List of bus ...

, the largest port in

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. The Maastunnel was built using the sunken tube or immersed tube method. Separate parts of the Maastunnel were built elsewhere in a

dry dock A dry dock (sometimes drydock or dry-dock) is a narrow basin or vessel that can be flooded to allow a load to be floated in, then drained to allow that load to come to rest on a dry platform. Dry docks are used for the construction, maintenance, ...

, and then floated into place and sunk into a trench dug in the river bottom, a technique used in many other Dutch tunnels after the Maastunnel. The Maastunnel was the world's first rectangular shaped underwater tunnel built in this way. Earlier tunnels were all of a circular design. Each of the nine parts of the tunnel has a length of over 60 metres, a height of 9 metres and a width of 25 metres. They contain two side-by-side tubes for motorised traffic, and, beside those, two vertically stacked tubes, one for cyclists and moped riders and the other for pedestrians. Cyclist and pedestrian access is by

escalator An escalator is a moving staircase which carries people between floors of a building or structure. It consists of a Electric motor, motor-driven chain of individually linked steps on a track which cycle on a pair of tracks which keep the st ...

, the wooden escalators are sized to fit bicycles. The tunnel can also be accessed via two elevators (one on each side) this is mostly used for heavier cargo bikes and mopeds, but accessible to anyone. At one time there was a

laboratory A laboratory (; ; colloquially lab) is a facility that provides controlled conditions in which scientific or technological research, experiments, and measurement may be performed. Laboratories are found in a variety of settings such as schools ...

in one of the ventilation buildings to examine the air quality in the tunnel. The Maastunnel was opened to the public on 14 February 1942 and was the first car tunnel in the Netherlands. At the end of the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

overhead line An overhead line or overhead wire is an electrical cable that is used to transmit electrical energy to electric locomotives, Electric multiple unit, electric multiple units, trolleybuses or trams. The generic term used by the International Union ...

s were installed to allow for the passage of

trolleybus A trolleybus (also known as trolley bus, trolley coach, trackless trolley, trackless tramin the 1910s and 1920sJoyce, J.; King, J. S.; and Newman, A. G. (1986). ''British Trolleybus Systems'', pp. 9, 12. London: Ian Allan Publishing. .or troll ...

es. Although two buses were ready for these experimental rides, they were never used for

public transportation Public transport (also known as public transit, mass transit, or simply transit) are forms of transport available to the general public. It typically uses a fixed schedule, route and charges a fixed fare. There is no rigid definition of whi ...

in Rotterdam, as the overhead lines were removed from the tunnel and used to repair the Rotterdam tramway network overhead lines which had been destroyed during the bombing. In 1944 the German invaders placed explosives in the tunnel so they could destroy it at a moment's notice. The length of the Maastunnel is 1373 metres (including access roads). The underground part is 1070 metres long. The lowest point of the tunnel is approximately 20 meters below sealevel. Above ground, the tunnel's location can be recognized by its characteristic ventilation buildings on both sides of the river. It can be seen from the nearby Euromast tower as well.

References

External links

Satellite image of the south ventilation building
{{coord, 51.900, N, 4.467, E, region:NL_source:enwiki-uniquenames, display=title Road tunnels in the Netherlands Tunnels completed in 1942 Buildings and structures in Rotterdam IJsselmonde (island) Immersed tube tunnels in the Netherlands 1942 establishments in the Netherlands Cycling in Rotterdam Cycling tunnels 20th-century architecture in the Netherlands