2007: Spain Gets a New Tunnel

December 4, 2007

A newly built tunnel in northeastern Spain’s autonomous community of Catalonia was inaugurated. This 3.3-mile (5.3-kilometer)-long tunnel is actually the second of two tunnels that are part of the N-230 road and connect the municipality of Vielha e Mijaran, capital of the administrative entity of Aran, with the comarca (administrative division) of Alta Ribagorça in the Alt Pirineu region. These parallel tunnels are collectively known as the Vielha Tunnel.

The first section of this tunnel system was opened in 1948. It was named in honor of Alfonso XIII (1886-1941), who reigned as king of Spain throughout his entire life. At the time of its debut, the Alfonso XIII Tunnel had the distinction of being the world’s longest road tunnel; this record was broken with the opening of the Greater St Bernard Tunnel between Switzerland and Italy in 1964.

The section of the Vielha Tunnel that opened in 2007 was named after Juan Carlos I (born in 1938), is a grandson of Alphonso XIII and was the king of Spain from 1975 until his abdication in 2014. The accompanying photo of the Juan Carlos I Tunnel was taken in 2015.

The Juan Carlos I Tunnel consists of two southbound lanes and a northbound lane. The Alphonso XIII Tunnel is now used as an emergency exit and also as a lane for trucks transporting potentially hazardous loads.

Photo Credit: Urisole (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on the Vielha Tunnel, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vielha_Tunnel