TUNNEL PAVING PROJECT FINISHES IN RECORD TIME IN VA

SECTIONPaving Pages 41-57

For more information on paving, compaction and milling equipment, as well as comparison charts, visit CEG's Web site at www.constructionequipmentguide.com. 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 waters carry aircraft carriers to kayakers and just about everything in between.

Vehicle traffic between these cities, bases and beaches is complex. It requires bridges, trestles, man-made islands and tunnels underneath the water to make it all work. The tunnels enable the large Navy vessels access to the ocean without being impeded by bridges.

The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial BridgeTunnel (MMMBT), the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) and the James River Bridge provide a critical transportation link for the region. If trouble occurs on any of the three links, the other two strain to sustain the traffic flow to avoid gridlock from happening. The local infrastructure also includes the Downtown Tunnel in Norfolk, Midtown Tunnel in Portsmouth and Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel which goes from Virginia Beach to Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) planners took steps to keep this vital transportation artery active by working with Branscome, a construction firm located in Williamsburg, to repave the MMMBT for the first time since it opened 28 years ago. VDOT contracted with Branscome to shut down traffic first in the southbound two-lane tunnel for paving. Workers then paved the northbound tube. VDOT allowed Branscome four weekends in October 2020 to complete the job. Branscome did it in just two.

Because of the traffic requirements, including an average of at least 3,500 trucks per day, Branscome was required to work between 9 p.m., Friday and reopen to traffic by 5 a.m., Monday. VDOT also inserted an emergency provision requiring the tunnel to open up a lane with just 30 minutes’ notice, if needed.

On Sunday night around 11 p.m. during the first weekend of paving, the emergency provision became necessary.

“Branscome was finishing the southbound tunnel entrance when we received a call about a multi-vehicle crash and at least one of the vehicles was on fire in the HRBT,” said John Jacobs, district construction engineer, Hampton Roads District. “Our regional operations director requested that the MMBT be opened immediately because we now had two of the three Peninsula to Southside river crossings blocked. Branscome quickly demobilized and got a lane opened to the traveling public.”

The first lane of the night paving project in the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel is completed.