The Lee tunnel - the largest infrastructural project to be undertaken by a local authority in the State - will be officially opened on May 21st next.
The Cork City Manager, Mr Jack Higgins, made the announcement yesterday following the opening of the Bloomfield Interchange and the Bloomfield and Douglas Estuary Bridges in Cork. The £15 million projects represent one of the final elements in the road network system which will link with the tunnel.
In 1978, the Cork Land Use and Transportation Study identified the need in Cork city for new bridges, a better roads system and ring roads to take traffic out of the city centre. The most radical proposal was that there should be a tunnel under the Lee linking the Blackrock area of the city to Glanmire across the estuary.
Once the ring roads were in place, the authors of the report argued, a Lee crossing would divert a substantial amount of traffic out of the city centre and relieve the chronic traffic congestion.
The tunnel, when approach roads are taken into account, will have cost almost £90 million. It is the final element in a £300 million infrastructural project which has been continuing in Cork since the early 1980s.
The tunnel does not go under the bed of the river Lee but rests on it. It was constructed using prefabricated concrete troughs which were floated out across the estuary and submerged. The various sections were joined and an elaborate security operation put in place.