Huguenot Tunnel
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The Huguenot Tunnel is a toll tunnel near Cape Town, South Africa. It extends the N1 through the Du Toitskloof mountains that separate Paarl from Worcester, providing a route that is safer, faster (between 15 and 26 minutes) and shorter (by 11 km) than the old Du Toitskloof pass travelling over the mountain.
Geological surveys and design started in 1973, and excavation followed in 1984, tunneling from both ends using drilling and blasting. The two drilling heads met with an error of only 3 mm over its entire 3.9 km length. The tunnel was finally opened on 18 March 1988.
In 2002, traffic peaks occurred during Easter (a record on 26 April of 18 200 vehicles) and the December school holidays (12 000 vehicles per day).
The toll as proclaimed in March 2004 was (in South African Rand):
- Light Vehicles: R 17,00
- 2-axle heavy vehicles: R 43,00
- 3 and 4-axle heavy vehicles: R 68,00
- 5 and more-axle heavy vehicles: R 112,00
The tunnel has 13 video cameras that feed into an automatic incident detection system, which can sound alarms for any of the following conditions:
- Stopped vehicles
- Fast and slow-moving traffic
- Traffic queues
- Wrong-way driving
