Germany and Denmark will be connected by an underwater autobahn (11 photos)
Unlike the 50-kilometer Channel Tunnel, the Fehmarnbelt Tunnel, the construction of which started on June 17, involves not only rail, but also road travel along the bottom of the Fehmarn Belt Strait in the western part of the Baltic Sea. 
The tunnel is very wide, as it will consist of a pair of two-lane highways, separated by a service road, and two electrified railway tracks.
Hailed as one of Europe's largest infrastructure projects, the new tunnel will be built not using boring machines, but by immersing individual sections of reinforced concrete into a pre-dug trench at the bottom. Each of them (there will be 89 in total) weighs 73 thousand metric tons with a length of 217 meters, a width of 42 and a height of 9 meters.
The length of the Fehmarnbelt will be just over 18 kilometers, the deepest point of the underwater route will be 40 meters below sea level. The planned commissioning date is 2029, the construction budget is a very moderate 7 billion euros.
As expected, shipping companies opposed the construction of the Fehmarnbelt tunnel, and it is not surprising, because now Denmark and Germany are connected only by ferry service. But after the tunnel is launched, travel time will be reduced to 7 minutes by train or 10 by car instead of the current 45 minutes by ferry. And once in Denmark, it will be possible to move further to Scandinavia, which will only stimulate European auto tourism. 
