Calgary airport tunnel by the numbers
Blog | Scott Dippel | CBC News | Posted: May 21, 2014 7:02 PM | Last Updated: May 21, 2014
Grand opening celebration for the 620-metre long tunnel to be held Saturday
Grand opening starts Saturday at noon featuring Mayor Naheed Nenshi and Ward 3 Coun. Jim Stevenson.
Celebration includes:
- Classic car Show ‘n Shine (registration full)
- Entertainers/live music
- Food trucks
- Displays by police, fire, EMS, transit
Calgary's long-awaited airport tunnel will open to traffic this Sunday morning but residents will get a chance to walk through the structure during an official opening event on Saturday.
The event will run 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. MT, with shuttle bus access provided from McKnight-Westwinds C-Train station. No vehicles will be allowed on site.
It's also a chance to see many of the things you otherwise won't notice while driving through the tunnel. I'll get to some of those in a moment but for now, here's the airport tunnel — by the numbers.
The tunnel
- Total build cost: $294.8 million
- Operation from June to December 2014: $475,000
- Full-year operation estimate: $1 million
- Insurance policy: $1 billion (annual premium $500,000 — part of estimated $1 million operating cost)
- Tunnel length: 620 metres
The politics
- City council vote when tunnel was approved in February 2011: 8-7
- Of the eight in favour, the following are still on council: (Mayor Naheed Nenshi, Jim Stevenson, Ray Jones, Richard Pootmans, Gian-Carlo Carra, Andre Chabot, Shane Keating and Peter Demong)
- Of the seven opposed, three still remain on council: (Diane Colley-Urquhart, Druh Farrell and Brian Pincott)
The lanes
- Number of lanes in tunnel: 6 (3 in each cell (or side) of the tunnel)
- Width of each side in metres: 17
- Vehicle height clearance in metres: 5.3
The route
- Tunnel goes under: 1 runway and 3 taxiways
- Future LRT? C-Train track could be put down on the inside lane in each side of tunnel
- Tunnel is made of 50 sections totalling 58,000 cubic metres of concrete and 12,000 tonnes of steel
- Concrete pour: February to October 2012
- Thickness: walls: 1 metre, floor slab: 1.5 metres
The extras
- Electrical conduit in kilometres: 45
- Number of 100 horsepower fans to clear smoke and exhaust from tunnel: 32
- Each fan unit weight in kilograms: 570
- Each fan unit length in metres: 5.6
- Fire extinguishers, dry standpipe (water) and fire hose: every 75 metres in each side of tunnel
- Lights: 1,380 halophane metal halide fixtures
- Electricity supply: From 2 different sub-stations in Calgary so guaranteed power at all times
The scale
- Tunnel can support heaviest planes in world: Airbus A380 and Antonov 225 (600,000 kilograms)
- Wireless sensors embedded in concrete to measure temperature and movement: 40
- Time to drive through tunnel at 70 km/hr in seconds: 32