Colombia, September 2020. La Línea Tunnel, the longest tunnel in Latam and the most important infrastructure of this type in Colombia, was opened to traffic on 5 of september.
The tunnel, 8.6 km long, for which an investment has exceeded 270 million dollars and for which more than 6,000 jobs have been created, is part of a road complex consisting of a dual carriageway of about 30 kilometers and has 31 viaducts and 25 tunnels. With the inauguration of the tunnel, 13 kilometers of the new dual carriageway and three other small tunnels have been opened to traffic. The remaining 17 kilometers of dual carriageway and the viaducts and tunnels included in this last section, whose opening is scheduled for the second quarter of 2021, still have to be completed.
Planned since 1902, due to the difficulty in drilling the Cordillera, the works of the tunnel of the Line could not begin until 2008. Declared by the National Council of Economic and Social Policy - CONPES as of strategic importance for the country, it is an integral part of the Bogotá - Buenaventura road corridor and represents a strategic infrastructure for the transport of cargo from the port of Buenaventura as well as for general traffic, since it reduces the travel time between the southwest and the center of the country by 50 minutes.
TEKIA provides specialized engineering and consultancy services in the drafting of the Operation and Maintenance Manual for the operation phase of the Line Tunnel and other tunnels in the section, as well as the associated Risk Analysis.