The tunnel was built between 1957 and 1958. The excavation work was conducted by the Cuban company Perforadora Panamericana, owned and operated by the Cuban engineers Gerardo and Fernando Pérez Puelles. In 2000, the tunnel’s maintenance was taken over by the Vinci Group. The tunnel extends from the Paseo de Prado, is 733 m long and 12 m below ground level. It takes a driver 45 seconds traveling at a speed of 60 km/h to traverse the tunnel. In the 1970s the new suburb of Alamar in East Havana was built with the aid of the former Soviet Union. The new suburb was composed of Soviet-style concrete buildings, with no city center or character.
Construction
The tunnel sections, including ventilation towers, are more than 100 m. long built on site. There are 5 prestressed concrete tubes, each tube is 107.50 m. long, 22 m. wide and 7.10 m. high. The tubes were built on a dry dock and floated to the site for their final submersion. The weight of each tube is 16,000 tons. The tunnel sections built on site are of similar characteristics as the ones in the side of Havana Vieja. A trench-like approximately 500 m. long connect with the toll collection plaza. The tunnel allowed the circulation of 4 lanes of vehicles, two in each direction, ans a vertical clearance of 14 ft. and 11 ft. wide for each direction of circulation. Two sidewalks 3 ft. wide each have been provided for police surveillance, one at each side of the central partition-wall which separates the two roads. These sidewalks are inter-communicated by 60 openings 2.20 by 1.20 m., placed throughout the entire length of the partition-wall. The slope of the Tunnel is 5.75%. The central part of the Tunnel; the section which corresponds to the third tube is horizontal and has a length 100 m. Due to these requirements, the port of entry to Havana, originally about 160m wide and 40 ft. deep, has remained unchanged, thus offering the possibility of having a channel nearly 100 m. wide and 45 ft. deep.
Ventilation
The Tunnel's ventilation is provided from two ventilation towers situated on both shores of the entrance channel, at a distance of more than 500 m. from each other. The installation of twelve fans manufactured by "Joy Engineering Corporation" has been foreseen for this purpose, six in each tower, with sufficient capacity to insure the renewal of the air inside the Tunnel within approximately one minute's time. The fresh air into the Tunnel circulates inside special conduits installed throughout its entire length i.e., two lateral galleries 3.60 m. high and 1.50 m. wide, and will be evenly distributed through openings made approximately every 3 m. in the walls of said galleries. The carbon monoxide contents inside the Tunnel are automatically controlled by devices manufactured by the "Mine Safety Appliance Co.", and installed near the entrance and exit of the Tunnel. The indications appearing on these carbon monoxide alarms will simultaneously be reproduced in the control rooms, which will enable those on duty to put into service the necessary extra number of fans to increase the supply of fresh air.
