Into The Future: CBBT Tunnel Needs and Options
While there has been planning work done to expand tunnel capacities as well, the facility currently continues to utilize only the original two-lane tunnels.
Plans to replace the two-lane tunnels with new and deeper four-lane versions were postponed indefinitely in 2005 at the direction of the Virginia General Assembly. Debate centered around the facts that while greater bay shipping and security would be enhanced by replacing the existing tunnels, the traffic counts and substantial cost estimates dictate that improvements for other water crossings in the Hampton Roads area may become higher priorities. The estimated cost of replacing the tunnels was $900 million.
Despite Virginia's deepening unmet transportation needs in the years since, the finances of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel Commission have been kept separately as recommended to the General Assembly in a 2002 report of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC). The study concluded that "given the inability of the state to fund future capital requirements of the CBBT, the District and Commission should be retained to operate and maintain the Bridge-Tunnel as a toll facility in perpetuity."
Read more about this topic: Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel
Famous quotes containing the word tunnel:
“You may raise enough money to tunnel a mountain, but you cannot raise money enough to hire a man who is minding his own business.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)