blah

I don't know why I feel like responding to everything since I don't live there anymore, but I think it was the hour it took me twice to a day for five years to drive 8 miles which still pisses me off.
When you pay taxes, it doesn't go straight to VDOT, it goes to the state which annually gives VDOT their budget so they can do what they need to do with it(i.e. fuck everything up). This would actually keep the taxes steady as oppose to raising them to completely fund the tunnel.
Exactly. But I couldn't use that example because most haven't been down here.
Oh God, yes! I think it was in the playbook to get a new midtown tunnel with 2 lanes each way but VDOT fucked that one up again. Otherwise there would be no reason to spend the time/money to make it so nice coming in from the Suffolk/P-town side; just to get it all shoved into one lane. Plus that tunnel has had surface/wall/flooding/etc.. issues for YEARS now.
They're going to expand 64 from 564 all the way to the bridges and put the tolls in there. That's what Norfolk's mayor was complaining about, but the way I see it is if you bought a house backed up to any interstate, it's only a matter of time before the city is going to pull eminent domain on you.
Nope. The United States Military is the fucking king of wasting money. They don't have the knowledge, manpower, equipment, nor experience to efficiently pull off a project of this scale. But if they were appointed to do it they would have to contract out consultants (which tax payers would have to pay for), contract out engineering firms (which tax payers would have to pay for), contract out construction firms (which tax payers would have to pay for) and then to top it off, there would be someone from the Army who doesn't know what they're doing to project manage it all (which tax payers would have to pay for). That's a recipe for disaster, especially the last point. But by getting a third party (like SKANSKA whom is a design/build firm) from the get-go, it'll all be taken care of by people within the industry that know what they're doing and an incentive to come in ahead of schedule and under budget.

marlinspike

I know that's how the Army often does things, but they don't have to. THey do have their own Corps of Engineers, and they have built stuff in the past. I remember looking at some of the pipelines price quotes when we were getting those organized to rebuild in Iraq, and I remember the Army always being cheaper (though not always being told to go ahead and do it themselves and to instead pay a contractor 2x the price).

ShawnD

national security? lolol Do you know how tall a bridge would have to be for a carrier to go under it? The only national security implement for road systems around here is the tunnel for the chesapeake bay IIRC. Disregard this if you meant something else boo.

Ordie

Would never work here. Idiots/Assholes would be in the left hand lane all the way up to the toll booth trying to cut in front of everyone in the right hand lane backing up traffic cause no one will let them in.

marlinspike

My understanding is we get stuck with these bridge-tunnels because the .mil powers that be say if a bridge is bombed it messes up the shipping lane that they need to use apparently.

NasTHatch

so i did some research and did the math for what the Cheasepeake bay bridge tunnel makes and its average is $240,000 A DAY, which is 6,720,000 a month which is 80 million and some chage a year, and the bridge has been open for 20 years which is 1,752,000,000 dollars, where the fuck has all that money gone and why do we need tolls to pay for roads when the bay tunnel has done it for us all

Hybrid AWD

You do know a bridge was one of the first concepts for the expansion? It was still going to be a draw bridge, and the tunnel was going to remain. The bridge would have been huge, but it would rarely be affected by the navy or any other large cargo.

The only thing I can imagine would be repair work and overall maintenance of the CBBT. The fact of the matter is, VA knows they are raking in money, that is why they were threatening taking it over. It's a shitty situation, but it is what it is.


For those not familar with the 3rd crossing option, take a look at "Candidate Build Alternative 9"


The project is envisioned to carry vehicles, light and heavy passenger rail across Hampton Roads, thereby relieving congestion while improving accessibility, mobility and the movement of goods in the region. Another important benefit is that by carrying rail across Hampton Roads, Southside Virginia is directly connected to the High-speed Rail Corridor via Newport News to Richmond to Washington, D.C.

ShawnD

The bay bridge is being worked on every day of the year every year, it is so big the routine stuff never ends. Or at least thats what modern marvels said about it, that takes a lot of money for the crews engineers etc. and the state probably takes some money too, VDOT had somewhere between 500-800 million hiding in this year alone. For the expansion I only ever heard of another tube to expand the tunnel lanes.

kashimiru

This plan and everyone that support it have always dumbfounded me. why would anyone want to divert traffic from one 2-lane tunnel to another 2-lane tunnel. The MMBT backs up just as easily as the HRBT. Often, one gets backed up as a direct result of the other's troubles already. The biggest downfall of that plan is that it's dreamed up to solve the problems of today or the past few years, and not the future when it would potentially be complete. Before its completed they'd be looking into new ways to relieve traffic from the south side to the peninsula

blah

That plan is also about 15 years old because I-264 into VA Beach is still labeled as SR-44 (it switched over in 1995). And at the beginning of the MMBT's life, around 1992, that bridge had zero traffic on it for years. But now... not so much.



Edit: Oh lord. So while trying to find the dates for the above post, I saw that the M&M Tunnel was built for $400 million dollars. How is it humanly possible for widening something that's over a mile shorter cost 10x as much as building 9 miles of interstate (664) and a tunnel from scratch? Why don't we build 8 more M&Ms instead? And that's generously sacrificing two M&Ms, the 90 miles highways and the pre-existing engineering cost to compensate for inflation.