Can Tube Tunnel Crossings Relieve Urban Congestion Problems? Izmir Tube Tunnel Project Proposal Under Scrutiny

Building underwater tube tunnel crossings to ease the urban congestion problems has become a popular approach for many cities across the globe. London, New York, Istanbul, Hamburg, Sydney and Brisbane are among these cities. However, the effectiveness and externalities of these expensive mega urban infrastructures have also been questioned widely among urban, transport and environmental planning scholars. Given the international popularity of the topic, this study places a new tube tunnel crossings project from Izmir, Turkey under the microscope. In this heuristic simulation study, policy-on scenarios were tested to determine possible impacts of the underwater tube tunnel-crossing project. The traffic impacts are discussed using simulations assigning the initial origin–destination data. The results of the study revealed that, given the two locations, outer and inner locations over the dagger-shape bay, the capacity increments on the bridge links and the links around the periphery highway did not bring any effective solutions beyond some minor improvements. The findings disclosed that the ineffectiveness of the tube tunnel crossing might be due to the excessive congestion happening all over the downtown area, which clogs the passageways to the bridge. The paper highlights the limitations of the tube tunnel-crossing project, emphasises the need for comprehensive investigations before committing to the project and advocates the emphasis to be actually given for sustainable mobility.