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There’s nothing quite as tranquil as a long drive down the rugged coast of Norway, with a unending sight of majestic glaciers, rivers and lakes peppering one side and lofty mountains and waterfalls on the other.

However, the beautiful view comes at a high cost — the majority of the Scandinavian country’s west coast is lined by more than 1,000 fjords, making even the simplest of journeys long and tenuous. For drivers looking to travel on Highway E39 from Trondheim in the north to Kristiansand in the south, the journey involves 21 hours of commute, which includes seven ferry crosses.

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Photo by The Norwegian Public Roads Administration

However, the government of Norway has come up with a plan that will, hopefully, cut the driving time in a half and make the commute ‘ferry free’ — build the world’s first submerged floating tunnel.

The $40-billion dollar infrastructure project will build a series of bridges over the fjords, and a world record for a 27 km-long, 400 meter-deep rock tunnel, drilled right into the sea bed.