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|} The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) is a railway tunnel through the Alps in Switzerland expected to open on 2 June 2016. With a route length of and a total of of tunnels, shafts and passages,〔(【引用サイトリンク】url= http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120313192733/http://www.57km.ch/fileadmin/gotthard/Downloads/Dokumente_PDF_e/Project_data_Gotthard_raw_construction_e.pdf )〕 it will be the world's longest and deepest traffic tunnel and the first flat low-level route through the Alps.〔Yücel Erdem, Tülin Solak, ''Underground Space Use. Analysis of the Past and Lessons for the Future'', CRC Press, 2005 (p. 485)〕 The project consists of two single-track tunnels connecting Erstfeld (Uri) with Bodio (Ticino) and passing below Sedrun (Graubünden). It is part of the AlpTransit project, also known as the New Railway Link through the Alps (NRLA), which includes the Lötschberg Base Tunnel between the cantons of Bern and Valais and the under construction Ceneri Base Tunnel (scheduled to open late 2019) to the south. It bypasses the Gotthardbahn, a winding mountain route opened in 1882 across the Saint-Gotthard Massif, which is now operating at capacity, and establishes a direct route usable by high-speed rail and heavy freight trains.〔Subscription required〕 It is the third tunnel connecting the cantons of Uri and Ticino after the Gotthard Tunnel and the Gotthard Road Tunnel. The main purpose of the Gotthard Base Tunnel is to increase total transport capacity across the Alps, especially for freight, notably on the Rotterdam-Basel-Genoa corridor, and more particularly to shift freight volumes from road to rail to reduce fatal crashes and environmental damage caused by ever-increasing numbers of heavy lorries. Another benefit will be to provide a faster connection between the canton of Ticino and the rest of Switzerland, as well as between northern and southern Europe, cutting the Zürich-Lugano-Milan journey time for passenger trains by about an hour and from Lucerne to Bellinzona to 1 hour 25 minutes. After 64 percent of Swiss voters accepted the AlpTransit project in a 1992 referendum, tunnel construction began in 1996.〔(【引用サイトリンク】url=http://wayback.archive.org/web/20120313192733/http://www.57km.ch/fileadmin/gotthard/Downloads/Dokumente_PDF_e/Chronology_e.pdf )〕 Drilling operations in the eastern tunnel were completed on 15 October 2010 in a breakthrough ceremony broadcast live on Swiss TV, and in the western tunnel on 23 March 2011. AlpTransit Gotthard Ltd. plan to hand over the tunnel to Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) in operating condition in December 2016;〔 this date was modified to 5 June 2016 on 4 February 2014 with the commencement of an 850-day opening countdown calendar on the AlpTransit homepage.〔 Total cost of the project is 9.8 billion Swiss francs, or US$10.3 billion.〔 On 31 October 2014, the railway track installation was completed. A gold sleeper—marking the very last part of the track—was installed during the event to mark this milestone of progress.〔http://www.globalrailnews.com/2014/11/03/track-laying-complete-on-gotthard-base-tunnel/〕〔http://www.euronews.com/2014/10/31/celebrations-as-last-piece-of-track-is-laid-in-record-breaking-gotthard-rail-/〕 ==Background== The route over the Gotthard Pass (or through its tunnels) is one of the most important passages through the Alps on the north-south axis. Traffic has increased more than tenfold since 1980 and the existing tunnels are at their capacity limits. A second (proposed) tunnel was to be constructed only if the volume of traffic rose above one million vehicles a year. In fact, the Engineer Giovanni Lombardi, responsible for the construction of the road tunnel added, "one year after the inauguration, the tunnel was already seeing 2.5 million vehicles ((23 October 2011) – about six million ) annually. But the promise was forgotten". To provide a faster and flatter passage through the Swiss Alps, the GBT cuts through the Gotthard Massif some below the older tunnel. On the current track, the Gotthardbahn, only trains up to 〔in German〕 when using two locomotives or up to with an additional bank engine at the end of the train are able to pass through the narrow mountain valleys and through spiral tunnels climbing up to the portals of the old tunnel at a height of above sea level. When the tunnel is completed, standard freight trains of up to will be able to pass this natural barrier. Because of ever-increasing international truck traffic, the Swiss voted in February 1994 for a shift in transportation policy (''Traffic Transfer Act'', enacted in October 1999). The goal of both the laws (and the goal of the GBT, which is one of the means by which the law will achieve its objective) is to transport trucks, trailers and freight containers between southern Germany and northern Italy by rail to relieve the overused roads (intermodal freight transport and so-called rolling highway where the entire truck is transported) and to meet the political requirement of shifting as much tonnage as possible from truck transport to train transport, as required by the 'Alpine Protection Act' of 1994. Passenger trains will be able to travel up to through the GBT, reducing travel times for trans-Alpine train journeys by 50 minutes, and by one hour once the adjacent Zimmerberg and Ceneri Base Tunnels are completed. In 2016, the Gotthard Base Tunnel is the longest tunnel in the world. It is the third Swiss tunnel to bear this title, after the Gotthard Tunnel (15 km, 1882) and the Simplon Tunnel (19.8 km, 1905).〔Bernard Wuthrich, "Le Romand du Gothard", ''Le Temps'', Monday 1 June 2015, page 20.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gotthard Base Tunnel」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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