{"id":11425,"date":"2023-05-14T13:04:17","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T13:04:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/?p=11425"},"modified":"2023-05-14T13:04:17","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T13:04:17","slug":"denmark-reconsiders-a-kattegat-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/?p=11425","title":{"rendered":"Denmark Reconsiders a Kattegat Link"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Danish government is reconsidering the feasibility of a Kattegat connection that would link the country\u2019s central Jutland peninsula with the Island of Zealand.<\/p>\n

Such a mixed road and rail bridge would cross the 35km Kattegat Strait between the Jutland city of Aarhus, with a population of about 540,000 \u2013 Denmark\u2019s second biggest city after the capital Copenhagen – and Kalundborg, a small city of 17,000 on the western shore of Zealand.<\/p>\n

The economic driver for such a connection is that it would make a direct route between Copenhagen on Zealand\u2019s eastern coast to Aarhus, operating westerly across Zealand to Kalundborg. From there it would be a bridge that would be built through Sams\u00f8 (a small island in the Kattegat Sea). As a result, there would be two sections of the connection – Kalundborg to Sams\u00f8 and Sams\u00f8 to Aarhus.<\/p>\n

According to a recent report in the Danish newspaper Dagbladet Licitationen, the evaluated cost of the project is almost \u20ac14.68 billion (US$16.24 billion).<\/p>\n

In 2014, the transport ministry predicted that traffic volumes between Zealand and Jutland would not be enough to undertake a Kattegat Bridge \u2013 costing approximately \u20ac11.8 billion – until nearly 2050.<\/p>\n

Denmark\u2019s minister of transport, Thomas Danielsen, lately claimed that there should be cross-party support in the Danish Parliament for constructing the link before any announcement about the feasibility of such a project is made. Last week, the topic was part of a transportation debate in the country\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n

Last summer, the former government reported that a link\u2019s environmental impact could mean that it would never be constructed.<\/p>\n

In March 2020, COWI<\/a> proposed studies for a combined road and rail connection across Kattegat, applying different corridors from central Zealand to Aarhus through Sams\u00f8. According to COWI, additional work has assessed road and rail infrastructure in Jutland and on Zealand plus studying technical solutions between the coasts of Zealand and Jutland such as corridors through Sj\u00e6llands Odde.<\/p>\n

A note on the company\u2019s website says: \u201cThe purpose is to weigh up the pros and cons of the different corridors,\u201d \u201cand to prepare a solid basis for further political discussion about the next steps, including whether to proceed with an environmental impact assessment for the Kattegat project.\u201d<\/p>\n

The project concerning onshore infrastructure is being done for the Danish Road Directorate along with the Danish Transport, Construction and Housing Authority. The study on offshore technical solutions is being done for Sund & B\u00e6lt. COWI has been working with the architectural firms Dissing+Weitling and Hasl\u00f8v & Kj\u00e6rsgaard as sub-consultants for the project.<\/p>\n

A Kattegat Bridge that would supplement the 18km Great Belt Fixed Link \u2013 Storeb\u00e6ltsbroen, has been considered by successive governments over the past two decades. It crosses the Great Belt strait between Zealand and Funen \u2013 Denmark\u2019s third most extensive island and close to the southeastern end of the Jutland peninsula as it joins mainland Europe at a border with Germany.<\/p>\n

Great Belt Fixed Link encompasses a road suspension bridge, a railway tunnel between Zealand and the small island Sprog\u00f8 in the middle of the Great Belt and a box-girder bridge for both road and rail traffic between Sprog\u00f8 and Funen.<\/p>\n

Presently, Denmark is constructing one of Europe\u2019s most significant transport infrastructure projects, the immersed Fehmarn Belt Road and rail tunnel between Denmark and Germany. It will drive an 18km tunnel beneath the Baltic Sea between the Danish Island of Lolland and the German island of Fehmarn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Danish government is reconsidering the feasibility of a Kattegat connection that would link the country\u2019s central Jutland peninsula with the Island of Zealand. Such a mixed road and rail bridge would cross the 35km Kattegat Strait between the Jutland city of Aarhus, with a population of about 540,000 \u2013 Denmark\u2019s second biggest city after the capital Copenhagen – and Kalundborg, a small city of 17,000 on the western shore of Zealand. The economic driver for such a connection is that it would make a direct route between Copenhagen on Zealand\u2019s eastern coast to Aarhus, operating westerly across Zealand to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":11427,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-project-show-case","post--single"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11425"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11425\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/11427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tunnelingworld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}