HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) — It’s one of the greatest engineering marvels, and for many years, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel was the longest bridge-tunnel crossing in the world. Now, it’s getting new life in the form of a new tunnel.
“They’re driving down a ring,” said Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel Executive Director of Infrastructure Mike Crist.
Unlike previous projects, they’re using a tunnel boring machine (TBM) named Chessie to tunnel through.
“Almost all of the tunnels in the region have been built by the immersed tube tunnel method,” Crist said, “so they built 300-foot long tunnel segments in a dry dock, they floated them out here, made a trench, submerged them in a trench and then covered it up. In this case, we start and tunnel underneath the channel and build the tunnel as we go.”
Chessie has a 43-foot diameter cutter head and is approximately 300-feet long, which is the length of a football field.
As she bores through, these concrete pieces are being placed inside the tunnel to create rings.
“Ten segments make a ring, there’s 990 rings in the tunnel, so in total we’ve got 9,990 segments,” Crist said.
And while the segments are being placed, Chessie is running a “muck,” sending this tunnel muck — clay and sand — back to shore.
“It’s excavating the soil and the water, and it will go down into the bottom of the chamber and it puts it on the conveyer belt and brings it out,” Crist said.
Construction started in 2017 and tunnel mining began in February 2023, but they hit a road block a few months later when they hit a historic ship anchor.
And a few months later, it was anchors away as they moved forward on the project.
The new tunnel will eventually run parallel to the existing tunnel from the southern-most island, closest to Virginia Beach, about 70 feet underwater to the second island. You can also say goodbye to head-on traffic in the tunnel, at least for part of your trip.
“This is the area where we get our biggest traffic backups, so it should alleviate some of that problem,” said Deputy Executive Director of Finance and Operations Tom Anderson. “Of course, that won’t be fully alleviated until we’re able to tackle the other checkpoint at Chesapeake Channel.”
The project is completely funded by tolls and toll revenue bonds, as CBBT doesn’t receive any local, state or federal money. That’s why Anderson said they’ll have to save up before starting the next one.
In the meantime, they ask that you be mindful as you cross this summer.
“There’s a lot of shifting lanes, there’s a lot of construction activity, a lot of dump trucks and tractor trailers entering and exiting this particular island,” Anderson said, “so drivers need to be alert for that.”
At this point, the tunnel is about 25% complete when it comes to boring, but there’s still more work left to be done once the boring is complete. A large part of the project work is on, or around the two man-made islands.
“By the end of the year, we hope to have the tunnel lined all the way through to the second island,” Crist said, “so that would complete the 6,400 feet of tunnel and then workers will remove the tunnel boring machine and they’ll come back and start to build the road-bed, put in utilities, ventilation equipment and build it out so we can drive on it.”
Right now the entire tunnel project is estimated to be completed by August 2027.