Twenty-five years ago, the Strahov Tunnel in Prague was opened

Prague - 25 years ago, on December 2, 1997, the Strahov Tunnel in Prague was opened. Its construction took 12 years, and at the time of its commissioning, it was the longest road tunnel in the Czech Republic. Since September 2015, the Brusnice Tunnel has been connected to the northern side of the tunnel, which is part of the Blanka tunnel complex leading to the Troja bank of the Vltava River.

The city began to consider the construction of a road tunnel under Strahov in the early 1970s. Construction began in 1985, but the exploratory tunnel started to be driven as early as 1979. Following extensive demolitions in the vicinity of Swedish Street, Metrostav began to excavate the tunnel from the south while simultaneously from the center towards the north. It was fully pierced in 1991.

After a gradual slowdown in the construction pace due to financial reasons, the tunnel was completed in 1997 and opened in November of the same year. The investment costs of the tunnel itself amounted to almost five billion crowns, with additional billions spent on related constructions enabling the connection of the tunnel to the roads, primarily the grade-separated intersection on the northern side of the portal (Malovanka).

The tunnel is 2004 meters long, and its length was surpassed only in December 2006 by the opened Panenská tunnel on the D8 motorway, which measures 2168 meters. Since September 2015, the longest tunnel in the Czech Republic has been the Bubeneč Tunnel from the Prague Blanka complex, which measures 3091 meters.

The Strahov Tunnel is one of the most modern in the Czech Republic and is also considered one of the safest. It is equipped with ventilation, a camera system, emissions measurement, fire alarms, and escape zones.