Karlsruhe (dpa/lsw) – After several delays, among other things due to falling fan parts, motorists can roar through the new Karlsruhe tunnel as planned from the middle of next week. The company announced on Thursday that Mayor Frank Mentrup (SPD) and Alexander Pischon from the Karlsruher Eisenbahndienstleistungen-Gesellschaft mbH (Kasig) will be present at the opening on October 19 (10:00 a.m.). The work has been completed and the tunnel, which is around 1.6 kilometers long, can be released.
The Karoline Luise Tunnel under the Kriegsstraße is part of the combined solution local transport project. Some of the tram traffic will be routed through a tunnel under the pedestrian zone, while some of the trams will run above ground on the new Kriegsstraße route to the south. The car lane, which previously divided the city in two, has been converted into a boulevard. But while the subway has been in operation since December, the opening of the tunnel has been postponed several times. Almost a week before the last planned date at the end of May, defective fans under the ceiling stopped the whole thing: parts of the rotors were thrown out of one during a test.