page_title: Havana Tunnel
section_title: Construction
hierarchical_section_title: Havana Tunnel / Construction
caption_attribution_description: English: Havana Tunnel under construction ca 1957
context_page_description: The president of the Republic Fulgencio Batista planned to expand the city to the east by building a new suburb with large avenues, and luxury buildings. A new connection between Havana Vieja and the east side cross Havana Bay was required; the new Havana Tunnel under the Havana Bay was built by the French company Societé de Grand Travaux de Marseille between 1957-58.
context_section_description: The tunnel sections, including ventilation towers, are more than 100 m. long built on site. There are 5 prestressed concrete tubes, each tube is 107.50 m. long, 22 m. wide and 7.10 m. high. The tubes were built on a dry dock and floated to the site for their final submersion.  The weight of each tube is 16,000 tons. The tunnel sections built on site (east side) are of similar characteristics as the ones in the side of Havana Vieja. A trench-like approximately 500 m. long connect with the toll collection plaza. The tunnel allowed the circulation of 4 lanes of vehicles, two in each direction, ans a vertical clearance of 14 ft. and 11 ft. wide for each direction of circulation. Two sidewalks 3 ft. wide each have been provided for police surveillance, one at each side of the central partition-wall which separates the two roads.  These sidewalks are inter-communicated by 60 openings 2.20 by 1.20 m., placed throughout the entire length of the partition-wall. The slope of the Tunnel is 5.75%.  The central part of the Tunnel; the section which corresponds to the third tube is horizontal and has a length 100 m. Due to these requirements, the port of entry to Havana, originally about 160m wide and 40 ft. deep, has remained  unchanged, thus offering the possibility of having a channel nearly 100 m. wide and 45 ft. deep.
caption: Tunnel entrance from East Havana
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