A tunnel 30 years in the making: Slovakia opens Višňové at last

After nearly three decades of planning and more than a decade of construction, Slovakia has finally opened the Višňové tunnel to traffic on Monday, 22 December. The tunnel in northern Slovakia forms the core of the 13.5-kilometre D1 highway section between Lietavská Lúčka and Dubná Skala, a key missing link on the main highway  route towards Košice.

“The Lietavská Lúčka–Dubná Skala highway section is literally a blessing for this region and for Slovakia as a whole,” Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer) said in his speech.

Despite its official opening shortly before midday, the first cars drove through the tunnel in the evening. The new highway section will be subject to the standard toll, and the maximum permitted speed in the tunnel will be 100 kilometres per hour.

With the handover of the Višňové tunnel, Transport Minister Jozef Ráž (Smer nominee) said that traffic on the Hričovské Podhradie–Lietavská Lúčka section is also expected to increase.

“The Ovčiarsko and Žilina tunnels were used by relatively few drivers, and only now, with the opening of Višňové, does their construction truly begin to make sense,” Ráž said.

With a length of 7.5 kilometres, Višňové has now become the longest road tunnel in Slovakia. The tunnel is expected to significantly ease traffic between Žilina and Martin by diverting more than 80 percent of vehicles away from the overloaded and accident-prone road beneath Strečno Castle. The new route is set to shorten the journey by about 15 minutes and improve safety on a stretch where 33 people have died in traffic accidents since 1998.

The Višňové tunnel forms part of the D1 section between Lietavská Lúčka and Dubná Skala. (source: NDS)

A project that outlived governments

Few infrastructure projects in Slovakia have taken as long to deliver. The route was first planned around 1990, exploratory works began in 1998 under then prime minister Vladimír Mečiar, whose government is characterised as semi-authoritarian, and the tunnel itself took more than ten years to build. Over that time, 13 transport ministers passed through office.

The project’s history mirrors Slovakia’s shifting political priorities. In 2009, the first government of Robert Fico included the section in a package of public-private partnership (PPP) projects. In 2007, Fico promised that the D1 highway would be completed and that Bratislava and Košice would be connected by 2010. The approach was abandoned in 2011, when transport minister Ján Figeľ, serving under Prime Minister Mikuláš Dzurinda, cancelled the PPP project as too expensive and turned to standard public procurement.

The first major tender produced a winning bid from a Skanska–Strabag consortium worth €338 million. After another change of government and the return of Robert Fico to power, the bid was excluded and a new tender was launched. In 2014, the contract thus went to a Slovak-Italian consortium of Dúha and Salini Impregilo for €410 million, with completion scheduled for 2019.

That deadline was never met. Delays mounted, subcontractors went unpaid and work slowed. In 2019, the state, under Robert Fico’s third government, terminated the contract and construction came to a halt.  

After a new tender, Skanska returned to the site in 2021, during the coronavirus pandemic, to finish the tunnel. Slovakia was then governed by the cabinet of Igor Matovič, a political opponent of Robert Fico.

The Višňové tunnel during a statutory inspection of the D1 highway sections on 21 June 2016. (source: TASR – Erika Ďurčová)

Demonstrators take part in a peaceful protest by representatives and employees of companies whose work or supplied materials for the Višňové tunnel had not been paid for, outside the tunnel entrance in Vrútky on 4 August 2022. (source: TASR – Erika Ďurčová)

Concreting of the road surface in November 2024. (source: Facebook – NDS)

Concrete works on both tubes of the more than seven-kilometre Višňové highway tunnel have been completed. Višňové, 22 July 2025. (source: TASR – Milan Podmaník)

Water, concrete and corrections

Engineering challenges were significant from the start. The tunnel runs through the flysch geology of the Malá Fatra mountains, characterised by unstable rock and large inflows of groundwater. During early exploratory works, water flows reached hundreds of litres per second, forcing changes to drainage design and construction methods.