Paving
SECTION
Pages 41-57
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Tunnel Paving Project Finishes in Record Time in Va. By Chuck MacDonald CEG CORRESPONDENT
Virginia’s Hampton Roads metro area consists of Newport News, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach and surrounding areas, with a metro population of 1.6 million people. The region embraces significant water access to the Atlantic Ocean and straddles the James, Nansemond and Elizabeth rivers. The Hampton Roads area is home to the largest U.S. Naval Base, a regional Coast Guard command and the Port of Virginia. All these activities and the area’s multiple shipyards generate a large and diverse volume of maritime traffic. These The first lane of the night paving project in the waters carry aircraft carriers to Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel is completed. kayakers and just about everything in between. tube. VDOT allowed Branscome four weekVehicle traffic between these cities, bases ends in October 2020 to complete the job. and beaches is complex. It requires bridges, Branscome did it in just two. trestles, man-made islands and tunnels underBecause of the traffic requirements, neath the water to make it all work. The tunincluding an average of at least 3,500 trucks nels enable the large Navy vessels access to per day, Branscome was required to work the ocean without being impeded by bridges. between 9 p.m., Friday and reopen to traffic The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridgeby 5 a.m., Monday. VDOT also inserted an Tunnel (MMMBT), the Hampton Roads emergency provision requiring the tunnel to Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) and the James River open up a lane with just 30 minutes’ notice, if Bridge provide a critical transportation link needed. for the region. If trouble occurs on any of the On Sunday night around 11 p.m. during three links, the other two strain to sustain the the first weekend of paving, the emergency traffic flow to avoid gridlock from happening. provision became necessary. The local infrastructure also includes the “Branscome was finishing the southbound Downtown Tunnel in Norfolk, Midtown tunnel entrance when we received a call Tunnel in Portsmouth and Chesapeake Bay about a multi-vehicle crash and at least one of Bridge-Tunnel which goes from Virginia the vehicles was on fire in the HRBT,” said Beach to Maryland’s Eastern Shore. John Jacobs, district construction engineer, Virginia Department of Transportation Hampton Roads District. “Our regional oper(VDOT) planners took steps to keep this vital ations director requested that the MMBT be transportation artery active by working with opened immediately because we now had Branscome, a construction firm located in two of the three Peninsula to Southside river Williamsburg, to repave the MMMBT for the crossings blocked. Branscome quickly first time since it opened 28 years ago. VDOT demobilized and got a lane opened to the contracted with Branscome to shut down traftraveling public.” fic first in the southbound two-lane tunnel for The paving crew resurfaced about a mile of road in the tunnel. At its deepest point, see TUNNEL page 54 paving. Workers then paved the northbound the road is 100 ft. below the surface of the water.
