As a cyclist, I have an interesting relationship with tunnels. (A Freudian would have a field day with that statement!) I've ridden, probably, my share and some long underpasses that could just as well have been tunnels. (I think of one in particular that dips as it goes under the Long Island Railroad trestle at 130th Street in Queens.) I can't say I seek out those long, enclosed passages, but when I enter them, I experience a mild adrenaline rush: Even if I know what's on either end of it, I like to imagine that I'm going to emerge in a different world from the one where I entered.
That said, one of the most gratifying experiences I've had as a cyclist took me through a tunnel. I detoured from one Alpine road--closed, probably, by an avalanche--to another, only to come to a tunnel in which an electrical outage extinguished the lights.
A driver in a Citroen waved to me. He told me to ride ahead of him, in the wake of his headlights, and the drivers behind him would follow. And they did!
I thought of that day when I came across this news item: A three-kilometer (1.8 mile) tunnel through the base of Lovstakken mountain Bergen, Norway has just opened in Bergen, Norway.
While that, in itself, may not seem so unusual--after all, the Norwegians, French, Italians, Japanese and other people who live in or by mountains have been building them for centuries---the purpose of the tunnel makes it a record-breaker.
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| Photo by Ronny Turoy |
The Norwegian under-pasage is the longest such structure built specifically for cyclists and pedestrians. There are separate lanes for each, and motorized vehicles are verboten. (OK, I know that's a German word. I don't know Norwegian!)
Perhaps the most unique and gratifying part of the tunnel, though, is that its designers seemed to do everything they could to make it seem less like a tunnel. The walls are lined with art and other visual delights, and the cave is illuminated with different colors of light in different parts of the tunnel, which helps to give people who pedal, walk and run an idea of how far they've progressed through it. And, in the middle of the tunnel there's a "sundial" in a place where the sun will never shine. It's intended, in part, to further break up the monotony of the tunnel, which is completely straight (which is something I never could claim) except for slight bends at the entrance and exit.
