The Kennedytunnel opened to road traffic on May 31, 1969, and to rail traffic on February 1, 1970. Named after John F. Kennedy, the thirty-fifth President of the United States, the Kennedytunnel is an important road, rail and bicycle tunnel to the south of Antwerp under the Scheldt.
The immersed tunnel has a length of 690 meters and consists of four tubes 15 meters below sea level. Two tubes for cars, each with an inner width of 14.25 m (2 x 3 lanes), run on either side of a 4 m wide bicycle tunnel, and a tube for railway traffic with a width of 10.50 m.
Plans for the tunnel dated from the fifties. Between 1945 and 1960 the volume of traffic going through the Waaslandtunnel had quintupled, so by the end of the fifties this tunnel had to accommodate more than 38.000 vehicles a day. Because of the increasing daily traffic, the construction of a second crossing was necessary.
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