AIZHAI BRIDGE (CHINA)

The Aizhai Bridge is a suspension bridge on the G65 Baotou-Maoming Expressway near Jishou, Hunan, China.  The bridge is famous for the spectacular view it offers those crossing it.  With a main span of 3,760 feet and a deck height of 1,102 feet it is the 14th highest bridge in the world and the world’s 24th longest suspension bridge. Of the world’s highest bridges, none has a main span as long as Aizhai. It is also the world’s highest and longest tunnel-to-tunnel bridge.  The bridge contains 1888 lights to increase visibility at night.

BROOKLYN-BATTERY (HUGH L. CAREY) TUNNEL

The Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel (officially the Hugh L. Carey Tunnel) is a tolled tunnel in New York City that connects Red Hook in Brooklyn with Battery Park in Manhattan. The tunnel consists of twin tubes that each carry two traffic lanes under the mouth of the East River. I-478 is the official route designation for the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and its approaches, although it is not signed as such. With a length of 9,117 feet, the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel is the longest continuous underwater vehicular tunnel in North America.

CUMBERLAND GAP TUNNEL

The Cumberland Gap Tunnel is 4,600-foot vehicular tunnel that carries U.S. Route 25E under Cumberland Gap National Historical Park near the intersection of Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. The eastern entrance to the tunnel is located in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee and the western exit is located in Middlesboro, Kentucky. The Cumberland Gap Tunnel is one of only two mountain vehicular tunnels in the United States that cross a state line, the other being the East River Mountain Tunnel on Interstate 77 between Virginia and West Virginia.

EAST RIVER MOUNTAIN TUNNEL

The East River Mountain Tunnel is a 5,142-foot vehicular tunnel that carries Interstate 77 and U.S. Route 52 through East River Mountain between the communities of Bluefield, West Virginia and Rocky Gap, Virginia. The East River Mountain Tunnel is one of only two land vehicular tunnels in the United States that cross a state line, the other being the Cumberland Gap Tunnel (Kentucky and Tennessee). The state line falls almost exactly across the midpoint of the tunnel, with 51% of the tunnel residing in West Virginia and the remaining 49% on the Virginia side.

CASCADE TUNNEL AT STEVENS PASS

The Cascade Tunnel at Stevens Pass in the Cascade Mountains between Spokane and Seattle is the longest railroad tunnel in the United States. The 7.8-mile tunnel, located on the BNSF mainline wad completed on January 12, 1929, replacing the original 2.6-mile Cascade Tunnel that was built in 1900 and plagued by snow slides. The tunnel connects Berne in Chelan County on its east with Scenic Hot Springs in King County on its west.

Eastern portal of the BNSF Cascade Tunnel located at Milepost 1700 on the Scenic Subdivision.

By Sturmovik at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76723199

LAERDAL TUNNEL

The Laerdal Tunnel is 15.23-mile-long road tunnel connecting Laerdal and Aurland in Sogn og Fjordane, Norway. It is the longest road tunnel in the world. The tunnel carries two lanes of European Route E 16 and represents the final link on the new main highway connecting Oslo and Bergen without ferry connections and difficult mountain crossings during winter. The design of the tunnel takes into consideration the mental strain on drivers, so the tunnel is divided into four sections, separated by three large mountain caves at 3.7-mile intervals. While the main tunnel has white lights, the caves have blue lighting with yellow lights at the fringes to give an impression of sunrise.

QINGHAI-TIBET RAILWAY AND TANGGULA RAILWAY STATION

The Qinghai-Tibet railway is a high-elevation railway that connects Xining, Qinghai Province to Lhasa, Tibet Autonomous Region of China. ·         The length of the railway is 1,215 miles ·         Passenger trains can carry between 800 and 1,000 passengers during peak season ·         The line includes the Tanggula Pass, which at 16,640 feet (3.15 miles) above sea level, is the world’s highest point on a railway ·         Tanggula railway station at 16,627 feet is the world’s highest railway station ·         The 4,390-foot long Fenghuoshan tunnel is the highest rail tunnel in the world at 16,093 feet above sea level ·         44 stations ·         675 bridges totaling 99.34 miles ·         The operational speed is 75 miles per hour and 62 miles per hour over sections laid on permafrost ·         The line has a capacity of 8 pairs of passenger trains ·         The passenger carriages used on Lhasa trains are specially built and have an oxygen supply for each passenger. ·         Every passenger train has a doctor

Tanggula railway station is the highest railway station in the world

HONG KONG-ZHUHAI-MACAU BRIDGE

The Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge (HZMB) is a 34-mile-long bridge-tunnel system consisting of a series of there cable-stayed bridges, an undersea tunnel, and four artificial islands. It is both the longest sea crossing and the longest open-sea fixed link on earth. The HZMB spans the Lingding and Jiuzhou channels, connecting Hong Kong, Macau, and Zhuhai, three major cities on the Pearl River Delta. The Main Bridge, the largest part of the HZMB project, is a bridge-cum tunnel system constructed by the mainland Chinese authorities. It connects an artificial island, housing the Boundary Crossing Facilities (BCF) for both mainland China and Macau in the west, to the Hong Kong Link Road in the east. This section includes a 14.2-mile viaduct and 4.2-mile undersea tunnel that runs between two artificial islands. The viaduct crosses the Pearl River estuary with three cable-stayed bridges spanning between 920-feet and 1,510-feet. The Hong Kong Link Road connect the Main Bridge to an artificial island housing the Hong Kong Boundary Crossing Facilities. This section includes a 5.8-mile viaduct, a 0.62-mile Scenic Hill Tunnel and 1.0-mile at-grade road along the east coast of the Hong Kong International Airport. The Zhuhai Link Road starts from an artificial island housing the Boundary Crossing Facilities for both mainland China and Macau, passes through the developed area of Gogbei via a tunnel towards Zhuhai, and connects to three major expressways.

THE ALASKAN WAY VIADUCT REPLACEMENT TUNNEL

The Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel, also known as the SR 99 Tunnel, is a bored highway tunnel in Seattle. The 2-mile double-decker tunnel carries a section of State Route 99 under downtown Seattle. Construction began in July 2013 using “Bertha”, at the time the world’s largest-diameter tunnel boring machine. Tunnel boring was completed in April 2017, and the tunnel opened to traffic on February 4, 2019.

BACK OF "BERTHA" AND PARTIALLY COMPLETED TUNNEL WITH CONCRETE WALLS IN PLACE IN 2017

6 HIGHEST VEHICULAR TUNNELS IN THE WORLD – NUMBER 1 – MILA MOUNTAIN TUNNEL

Tunnel Name	Mila Mountain Tunnel
Location	Eastern Tibet China
Year Opened	2019
Height (Feet)	15,584
Distance (Miles)	3.5
Other	It is part of the 400-kilometer highway linking the regional capital of Lhasa with Nyingchi, in the southeast region.

NOTE: Your humble blogger had to do quite a bit of research to put together this list of world's highest vehicular tunnels. The China tunnels were confusing because of various names given to them and the fact that they both were cited as being the world's highest. It turns out that the Cho La Mountain Tunnel was never the world's highest, despite several news reports stating that to be the case. Here is the most important thing to note: There is nowhere on the world wide web that you can find a correct listing of the order of the world's 6 highest vehicular tunnels, other than on John Smith's Blog.

6 HIGHEST VEHICULAR TUNNELS IN THE WORLD – NUMBER 2 – PUNTA OLIMPICA TUNNEL

Tunnel Name	Punta Olimpica Tunnel
Location	Ancash, a region of northern Peru
Year Opened	2013
Height (Feet)	15.535
Distance (Miles)	0.86
Other	Longest vehicular tunnel in Peru. Drilling began on May 15, 2012 and ended on February 24, 2013. The tunnel is intended to ease traffic on Route AN-107, one of the cross roads in the Ancash region linking the cities of Carhuaz, San Luis and Chacas.

6 HIGHEST VEHICULAR TUNNELS IN THE WORLD – NUMBER 3 – TUNEL DE KAHUISH

Tunnel Name	Tunel de Kahuish
Location	Ancash, a region of northern Peru
Year Opened	?
Height (Feet)	14,816
Distance (Miles)	?
Other	Located within the Huascaran National Park in the Cordillera Blanca range of the Andes Mountains. The road is mostly asphalted with some gravel sections.

6 HIGHEST VEHICULAR TUNNELS IN THE WORLD – NUMBER 4 – CHO LA MOUNTAIN TUNNEL

Tunnel Name	Cho La Mountain Tunnel AKA Tunnel Mount Que’ershan
Location	Cho La Mountains in western Sichuan Province, China
Year Opened	2017
Height (Feet)	14,363
Distance (Miles)	4.35
Other	Project took 15 years to complete. Tunnel has a speed limit of 40 kph and takes around 10 minutes to pass through. Before the tunnel was built, drivers had to negotiate a treacherous mountain route prone to landslides, avalanches, rockfalls, blizzards, and ice.

6 HIGHEST VEHICULAR TUNNELS IN THE WORLD – NUMBER 5 – EISENHOWER TUNNEL

Tunnel Name	Eisenhower Tunnel
Location	I-70 approximately to miles west of Denver, Colorado
Year Opened	1973 (West bound bore); 1979 (East bound bore)
Height (Feet)	11,158
Distance (Miles)	1.7
Other	Tunnel carries I-70 under the Continental Divide in the Rocky Mountains. It is the longest mountain tunnel and highest point on the Interstate Highway System. At dedication in 1979, it was the highest vehicular tunnel in the world. Electricity Cost (Monthly) $70,000 Average Monthly Traffic (2016) 33,959

Westbound Entrance to Eisenhower Tunnel

6 HIGHEST VEHICULAR TUNNELS IN THE WORLD – NUMBER 6 – SALANG TUNNEL

Tunnel Name	Salang Tunnel
Location	Hindu Kush Mountain Range, Afghanistan
Year Opened	1964
Height (Feet)	11,154
Distance (Miles)	1.6
Other	Salang Tunnel was built by the Soviet Union. It is largely unpaved, unlit and has no ventilation system. The billowing dust inside makes for near-zero visibility at times. Anything exceeding 5 miles per hour inside the tunnel is nearly impossible. Held title of highest vehicular tunnel in the world from 1964 to 1979.

GOTTHARD BASE TUNNEL - SWITZERLAND

The Gotthard Base Tunnel is the longest and deepest railway tunnel in the world. It has a length of 35.47 miles and depth of 8,040 feet, comparable to that of the deepest mines on Earth. The tunnel cost more than $12 billion to build and took 17 years to complete. It opened in 2016 and provides a high speed-rail link under the Swiss Alps between northern and southern Europe. At the opening of the tunnel, a lavish show was performed with dancers, acrobats, singers and musicians celebrating Alpine culture and history. (See below).

CHUNNEL BORING MACHINES

The 6 English machines used to drill the Channel Tunnel were called 1, 2,3,4,5 and 6. The 6 French machines were called Brigitte, Europa, Catherine, Virginie, Pascoline and Severine.

“Virginie” is the only surviving tunnel boring machine (TBM).  It is on display at the Eurotunnel Calais Terminal in Coquelles, France. On it are the words "hommage aux bâtisseurs du tunnel", meaning "tribute to the builders of the tunnel".

STAPLE BEND TUNNEL - JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA

The Staple Bend Tunnel, about 4 miles east of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, in a town called Mineral Point, was the first railway tunnel constructed in the United States.

The tunnel was constructed between 1831 and 1834 for the Allegheny Portage Railroad and is 901 feet in length. It is rock bored and stone lined.

The Staple Bend Tunnel was the 3^rd tunnel of any kind built in the U.S.; the first two tunnels were for canals in Pennsylvania.

The tunnel was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1994, and in 2001 became part of the Allegheny Portage Railroad National Historic Site, administered by the National Park Service. The tunnel is now open to the public for use as part of the Staple Bend Tunnel Trail.

A view of the abandoned tunnel c.a. 1911. A man stands to the left for a height comparison,