Eagle's Nest Tunnel and Sha Tin Heights Tunnel are road

tunnel A tunnel is an underground or undersea passageway. It is dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, or laid under water, and is usually completely enclosed except for the two portals common at each end, though there may be access and ve ...

s in the

New Territories The New Territories (N.T., Traditional Chinese characters, Chinese: ) is one of the three areas of Hong Kong, alongside Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. It makes up 86.2% of Hong Kong's territory, and contains around half of the population of H ...

Hong Kong Hong Kong)., Legally Hong Kong, China in international treaties and organizations. is a special administrative region of China. With 7.5 million residents in a territory, Hong Kong is the fourth most densely populated region in the wor ...

. Both tunnels were officially opened on 21 March 2008. The tunnels connect

Cheung Sha Wan Cheung Sha Wan () is an area between Lai Chi Kok and Sham Shui Po in New Kowloon, Hong Kong. It is mainly residential to the north and south, with an industrial area in between. Administratively it is part of Sham Shui Po District, which al ...

through Eagle's Nest hill to

Tai Wai Tai Wai (Chinese: 大圍 ) is an area in the New Territories, Hong Kong, located between Sha Tin and the Lion Rock, within the Sha Tin District. With three rapid transit stations, one of which an interchange station serving two lines, fiv ...

, and are linked by a shared toll plaza. Eagle's Nest Tunnel is connected at its southern end to

Stonecutters Bridge Stonecutters Bridge is a high level cable-stayed bridge spanning the Rambler Channel in Hong Kong, connecting Nam Wan Kok, Tsing Yi to Stonecutters Island. The bridge deck was completed on 7 April 2009, and opened to traffic on 20 December ...

and Ching Cheung Road, whereas Sha Tin Heights Tunnel is linked at the northern end to Che Kung Miu Road and

Tai Po Road Tai Po Road ( Chinese: 大埔公路) is the second longest road in Hong Kong (after Castle Peak Road). It spans from Sham Shui Po in Kowloon to Tai Po in the New Territories of Hong Kong. Initially, the road was named Frontier Road. Location ...

. The tunnels are part of the Tsing Sha Highway of Route 8, and were constructed in anticipation of future traffic demands generated by development in the northeast New Territories. The combined toll for the two tunnels is HK$8 (for private cars).

Construction

Eagle's Nest Tunnel

The contract for the construction of the Eagle's Nest Tunnel was awarded to a joint venture between

Leighton Asia Leighton Asia Limited is an Asia-Pacific construction contractor, a part of the CIMIC Group, an Australian project development and contracting group. Leighton Asia is currently headquartered in Hong Kong, and has been operating in the continen ...

and

Kumagai Gumi is a Japanese construction company founded in Fukui, Fukui Prefecture, Japan. The company still has registered headquarters in Fukui, but the actual head office is located in Shinjuku, Tokyo. History Santaro Kumagai, the company's founder, be ...

. Construction began in October 2003 and the estimated cost of the project is HK$1.84 billion. The project comprises two 2.1 km, three-lane tunnels from Butterfly Valley to Sha Tin Valley through Eagle's Nest mountain (granite), and all the associated electrical, mechanical and landscaping works that will be necessary. The tunnel was commissioned in March 2008. The full scope of the construction project includes: * Twin 2.1 km, three-lane tunnels * 400m ventilation shaft * North and south tunnel portal buildings * Ventilation building off

* Three-storey administration building * Toll plaza and toll collection facilities (in addition to a footbridge, subway and canopy at the toll plaza) * 500m tunnel approach road * Miscellaneous earthworks, road works and landscaping * Electrical and mechanical (E&M) for both the Eagle's Nest Tunnel and the adjacent, separately constructed, Sha Tin Heights Tunnel

Sandvik Sandvik AB is a Swedish multinational corporation, multinational engineering company specializing in products and services for mining, rock excavation, drilling rig, rock drilling, rock processing (crusher, crushing and mechanical screening, scre ...

Tamrock Corp supplied five new Tamrock Axera tunnelling jumbos for the Eagle's Nest tunnelling project. The first unit is a Tamrock Axera T08, a two-boom jumbo with basket boom and Tamrock Computer Aided Drilling (TCAD) instrumentation. This unit is used at the ventilation shaft and was delivered in April 2004. The remaining four units are all Tamrock Axera T12DATA - three-boom fully computerised jumbos with basket booms. These units were delivered to the site in summer 2004 and are being used in the main tunnel with two units drilling side-by-side for the cross section area of height 11.8m and width 16.3m.

Sha Tin Heights Tunnel

The Sha Tin Heights Tunnel project involved the construction of 0.9 km of road tunnel and a toll plaza, along with connecting roads to Road T3 and slip roads to Che Kung Miu Road. The project had an estimated cost of HK$1.308 billion. The excavation of the tunnel began in November 2002. The project was undertaken by the Civil Engineering and Development Department (CEDD) in Hong Kong. The project included: * Site formation, drainage, geotechnical and landscape works for the toll plaza (toll plaza completed in 2004) * 0.9 km of three-lane twin-bore tunnel underneath Sha Tin Heights * Dual, two-lane at-grade carriageway of 0.7 km linking the Sha Tin Heights Tunnel and Road T3 * Slip roads connecting to Che Kung Miu Road * Construction of noise mitigation measures

References

External links

News.gov.hk

{{HK routes, r8; Road tunnels in Hong Kong Route 8 (Hong Kong) Cheung Sha Wan Sha Tin District Tunnels completed in 2008 2008 establishments in Hong Kong Toll tunnels in Hong Kong