41 Minutes to 11 Minutes: Busan's Underground Revolution

๐Ÿš— Latest News: Busan's Underground Marvel — The Mandeok-Centum Expressway

Busan has always been a city that finds creative solutions to its challenging geography. With towering mountains on one side, the vast sea on the other, and notoriously congested roads squeezed in between, navigating the city has always been an adventure.

In fact, Busan is famous for having more tunnels than any other city in Korea—and some of the longest too, bored straight through the mountain ridges that define the city's unique urban landscape.

And in February 2026, the city officially added its most impressive and daring tunnel yet.

⏱️ The Numbers That Redefined Busan Traffic

On February 10, 2026, the Mandeok-Centum Urban Expressway officially opened to the public—and Busan's daily commuters have never been happier.

The dramatic numbers tell the story best: a grueling journey that once took 41.8 minutes through heavily jammed surface streets now takes just 11.3 minutes.

  • The Scale: A massive 9.62km (approx. 6 miles) tunnel running about 40 meters (131 feet) deep underground.

  • The Route: It directly connects Mandeok in the northwest to the sleek skyscrapers of Centum City in the east via Dongnae.

  • The Milestone: This is Korea's very first deep underground road built to accommodate all vehicle types—from regular passenger cars to large cargo trucks. It is a genuine first in Korean infrastructure history.

๐ŸŽฏ 25 Years in the Making

The grand opening of this expressway marks the ultimate completion of Busan's inner ring road network—a grand vision that had been stuck on the drawing board for over 25 years. It has been a long time coming for a city that has historically struggled with some of the bottleneck traffic jams in the country.

While locals are celebrating the massive time savings on their daily commute, this engineering marvel offers a massive, practical shortcut for international travelers as well.

๐Ÿ’ก Stress-Free Transit from the Airport to Haeundae Thanks to this new deep underground route, getting from Gimhae International Airport [Visit Busan Map #A] to Centum City / BEXCO [Visit Busan Map #11] by taxi now takes only around 35 minutes. It completely bypasses the unpredictable surface gridlock, making your arrival in Busan fast, direct, and completely stress-free.

Not bad at all for a high-tech tunnel running 40 meters below the bustling city streets. Busan has proven once again that it knows exactly how to conquer its mountains to keep moving forward.

On your next trip to Busan, skip the surface traffic and take a smooth, lightning-fast ride through the city's newest underground marvel! ๐Ÿพ


๐ŸŒ ํ•œ๊ตญ์–ด ๋ฒ„์ „ ๋ธ”๋กœ๊ทธ (Korean Version)

๐Ÿ‘‰ Read the Korean version of this story here!


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