- Kingsway Tunnel
The Kingsway Tunnel is a road
tunnel under theRiver Mersey inMerseyside , northwestEngland , betweenLiverpool andWallasey . It is one and half miles (2.4 km) long. It is often called the Wallasey Tunnel to specify it serves Wallasey as opposed to theQueensway Tunnel , an alternative tunnel crossing the Mersey, which servesBirkenhead .The tunnel was built between 1966 and 1971 when the Queensway Tunnel between Liverpool and Birkenhead was no longer able to cope with the volume of traffic and was opened in June 1971 by Queen Elizabeth II. It consists of twin tubes, each tube having two lanes each convert|12|ft|m|abbr=on wide.
The entrance to the Kingsway Tunnel is used as the basis of a tunnel entrance in the video game
Grand Theft Auto III — during the 1990s, several members of the game's development team had worked for the Merseyside-based development companyPsygnosis .The present fee for a single car journey through the tunnel is £1.40 [cite web |url=http://www.merseytunnels.co.uk/nossl/html/fees.php| title=Mersey Tunnels: Tolls, Fees and Charges] , payable at the Wallasey end of the tunnel for vehicles travelling in either direction.
In a study following the fire in the
Mont Blanc Tunnel in 1999, inspectors from theEuropean Union rated the Kingsway Tunnel as "good", one of only eight to receive that rating in Europe.References
External links
* [http://www.merseytunnels.co.uk/ Official website of the Mersey Tunnels]
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