Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has inaugurated the country’s longest motorway tunnel
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has inaugurated the country’s longest motorway tunnel by rollerblading through the massive 7.5 km-long structure.
The opening ceremony for the Visnove Tunnel was held on Monday, after the structure was finally completed after more than three decades of planning and over 10 years of construction.
The PM rollerbladed through the entire stretch of the tunnel, posting footage to his Facebook page.
Fico hailed the opening as a major achievement for the country, accusing his predecessors of disrupting its construction.
“Those who never did anything for this project or opposed it… are cursing and slandering today, while those who know what it means to deliver such a project to a successful end have a smile on their face,” Fico wrote.
The project was first floated in the early 1990s in then-Czechoslovakia, with preparatory work starting in 1998. Construction began in the late 2000s under the first Fico government but was halted by his successor, Mikulas Dzurinda, due to concerns over costs.
The project was ultimately revived, yet ended up plagued by repeated delays, changes of contractors, and multiple missed deadlines.
The Visnove Tunnel is the core of a new 13.5 km section of the D1 motorway, the oldest, longest, and busiest east-west road in Slovakia, which runs through most of the country’s territory. Apart from the tunnel, the new stretch includes multiple bridges and cuts through the Mala Fatra mountains.
The new motorway is set to lift the burden from an old D1 accident-prone section that goes around the north of the mountains. The new stretch is expected to significantly ease traffic in the area and cut travel times by at least 15 minutes.
