Breaking ground on Feb. 28 in a ceremony attended by Turkey Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, a 5.4-kilometer twin-deck tunnel crossing beneath the Bosphorus’ seabed will join the European and Asian sides of Istanbul at a cost of $1.4 billion. Istanbul is the largest metropolitan city in Europe and third-largest city in the world, with a population of 13.2 million.
The Istanbul Strait Road Tube Crossing, or the Eurasia Tunnel, will be designed, built, financed and operated by Avrasya Tüneli Isletme Insaat ve Yatirim Anonim Sirketi (ATAS), a partnership of Yap? Merkezi from Turkey and SK E&C, Kukdong, Samwhan Corp. and Hanshin from Korea.