Carmel Tunnels - Overview

Overview

The entire project is 6.5 km long. There are four tunnels (two sets of twin tunnels), the 3.5 km long western set and the 1.6 km long eastern set, containing two lanes of traffic in each tunnel. The tunnels were bored in the Carmel Mountains, essentially under the city of Haifa and have three portals: one from the west, near the MATAM business park (with a connection to the Coastal Highway and the Old Haifa–Tel Aviv Highway), one in the center off Rupin Road (next to the Grand Canyon Shopping Mall), and from the east leading to the Krayot interchange and Highway 22.

The project was built by Carmelton, a subsidiary of Ashtrom and Shikun UVinui, two of the largest infrastructure companies in Israel, and the tunnels were bored by CCECC, a Chinese company specializing in tunnel boring.

In January 2009, boring was completed on the westbound tunnel in the eastern portion of the project. Boring of the last tunnel was completed on June 1, 2009. The cost for drivers is 6 NIS for each segment (a drive to the central portal is considered one segment and driving the entire east-west route is composed of two segments). Payment can be made in cash at a toll booth or by video tolling using automatic number plate recognition for subscribers who arrange a billing relationship or by video or transponder tolling for Highway 6 subscribers. The total cost of the project will be approximately 1.2 billion NIS (300 million US Dollars in December 2008 prices).

Currently under construction is a connector between the tunnels' eastern portal and Highway 22. This connector will be the final link between a series of highways that together form a controlled access roadway corridor stretching from Acre (Akko) to Ashdod along Israel's Mediterranean coast.