The Noord Tunnel is a tunnel under the

Noord Noord () is a town and region in Aruba (part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands). This town is known for its low rise and high rise hotels, restaurants, beaches, malls, the California Lighthouse, and other places of attraction. Places of interes ...

on the

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 ...

A15 around

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 ...

History

The Noord Tunnel was built between 1988 and 1993Noordtunnel
''Tec-tunnel.com'' for a cost of 136 million euros. The Dutch banking group

ING Ing, ING or ing may refer to: Art and media * '' ...ing'', a 2003 Korean film * i.n.g, a Taiwanese girl group * The Ing, a race of dark creatures in the 2004 video game '' Metroid Prime 2: Echoes'' * "Ing", the first song on The Roches' 199 ...

led the financing for the construction, and sealed a deal with the Dutch government which specified that the government would pay ING a fee for each car that uses the tunnel, which opened in 1992. By 2001, ING was reimbursed its investment, but the government kept paying the banking group since the deal was supposed to run until 2021. By 2013, the tunnel had earned ING 355 million euros, paid by the Dutch taxpayers.'ING verdient miljoenen aan Noordtunnel'
''Rijnmond.nl'', 20 August 2013

Description

The bridge that it replace now serves local traffic and dangerous materials that are not allowed into the tunnel. The tunnel is a three-lane twin tube with a central duct. Its total length is 1,300m, of which 490m are immersed.

References

Road tunnels in the Netherlands Tunnels completed in 1992 Alblasserwaard Drechtsteden Alblasserdam Economy of Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht IJsselmonde (island) Geography of Hendrik-Ido-Ambacht {{Europe-tunnel-stub