Tag: Gocek Tunnel

Deli Dumrul* Tunnel in Gocek Turkey The 960 metres long Tunnel in Gocek Turkey has a long story dates back to 1965 when Mr. Haldun Mentesoglu (he was the Minister of Public Works than) first mentioned the need. Before the tunnel was built, motorists travelling on D400 Mugla - Antalya road had to drive through the winding mountain roads when they reached Gocek district. 25 minutes drive through mountains were shorten to 1 minute drive with the opening of the Gocek Tunnel but this hardly stopped the arguments about the tunnel, which sparkled again with the demonstrations against the recent toll rises. The talks of needing a tunnel, plans and promises has been made by every prime minister and ministers since 1965. 8 Prime Ministers, 11 Public Ministers and 13 Parliaments later, finally in 2005 first actual work had started on building of the tunnel. Tubim - Lider Consortium (Lider Insaat Ltd. Sti. with %25 share and Tubim Insaat Ltd. Sti. with %75 share) has signed a "Build - Operate - Transfer" (BOT) agreement with Turkish Government to start the construction in April 2005 with a finish date of July 2006.  According to the agreement, Tubim & Lider Insaat was granted with a 26 years concession that would give them rights to collect toll fees from the tunnel to recover its investment, operating and maintenance expenses in the project. Upon this agreement and completion of the tunnel on July 26th 2006, Turkey met with its first BOT Tunnel that is built and operated by a private entity. As soon as tunnel has started to operate in this beautiful tourism town of Gocek Turkey, opposition voices started protesting the one and only tunnel with toll fees in Turkey. Some criticised the toll fees being too high, (2,50 TL for cars and 3,50 TL for vans in