Rheinufertunnel (Cologne)
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The Rheinufertunnel is a 560 meter long road tunnel in Cologne's old town and part of the federal highway 51 between the Hohenzollern and Deutz bridges along the Rhine .
History of origin
The Lord Mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer , already pursued the idea of a tunnel on the banks of the Rhine. But it wasn't until 50 years later that the city realized this building project from 1979 onwards in the form of a tunnel , which was created using the cut-and-cover method, is located below the general surrounding terrain and was covered with earth after completion. So it was not a case of an enclosure , whereby the transitions between the tunnel and the enclosure are fluid, as the purpose of the lowering is often not recognizable afterwards.
The excavation work caused an archaeological catastrophe from 1979, because schoolchildren collected objects of archaeological value lying in the rubble and kept some of them. Further official excavations on January 21, 1981 brought out a head made of Lorraine limestone and later also parts of notched belt trimmings. After more than 3 years of construction and construction costs of 120 million DM, the inauguration of the Rhine bank tunnel took place on November 5, 1982. The open space above the new Rhine bank tunnel was used for the creation of the 600 meter long Rhine garden , which was inaugurated on August 17, 1984. The Rheingarten connects Cologne's old town with the Rhine promenade. Between September and November 2006, rehabilitation measures were carried out in places in the tunnel.
Flood protection
The deep location of the Rhine bank tunnel near the Rhine required flood protection through tunnel gates ( flood gates ). The Rhine bank tunnel is an endangered structure because it does not have adequate buoyancy protection for flood protection. To avoid structural damage, it would have to be flooded from a level of 10.70 meters. In order to avoid the effort caused by this flooding, the position of the protective wall is chosen so that it lies behind the tunnel or is just about level with the landside tunnel wall. The area above the tunnel is flooded in order to protect against buoyancy. This is easily possible because there are no buildings or traffic routes worthy of protection above the tunnel, only the Rheingarten with the promenade.
In the event of flooding, the precautionary measures provide that shipping will be restricted from a level of 6.20 meters in Cologne , shipping to be stopped at 8.30 meters and the Rhine bank tunnel closed at 9.80 meters. On January 30, 1995, the Rhine level reached a high water level of 10.69 meters, which inundated the ramps of the closed tunnel, on February 2, 1995 they were pumped dry, and on February 3, 1995 the tunnel was able to return to a water level of 8.60 meters be released.
Extension of the Rhine bank tunnel
The “Cologne Inner City Master Plan” from December 2008 advocates an extension of the Rheinufer tunnel to the Rheinauhafen . As a result, the Rheinuferstraße is to be gradually lowered in the further course of about 1.5 km to the south to the Ubierring in order to structurally connect the entire southern part of the city more closely to the Rhine and to increase the quality of life and stay in the urban areas there.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Peter Fuchs (Ed.), Chronicle of the History of the City of Cologne , Volume 2, 1991, p. 318 f.
- ↑ Keyword housing ( memento of the original from October 31, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. on Kinoso.com
- ↑ Helmut Jäger, Stadtkernforschung , 1987, p. 79.
- ↑ Stephan Meyer, Kleiner Kölscher Kosmos , 2005, p. 86.
Coordinates: 50 ° 56 ′ 19 ″ N , 6 ° 57 ′ 45 ″ E