Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel

In December 1606, the Virginia Company of London sent an expedition to North America to establish a settlement in the Colony of Virginia. After sailing across the Atlantic Ocean from England, they reached the New World at the southern edge of the mouth of what is now known as the Chesapeake Bay.[4] They named the two flanking Virginia points of land /capes like gateposts at the entrance to the long extensive estuary after the sons of their king, James I, the southern Cape Henry, for the eldest and presumed heir, Henry Frederick, Prince of Wales, and the northern Cape Charles, for his younger brother, Charles, Duke of York (the future King Charles I). A few weeks later they established their first permanent settlement on the southern, mainland, side of the bay, several miles upstream along the newly named James River at Jamestown on the northern shore on a close-in island for protection, the first permanent settlement in English North America.

Across the bay, the area north of Cape Charles was located along what became known later as the Delmarva Peninsula. As it bordered the Atlantic Ocean to its east, the region became known as Virginia and neighboring Maryland's Eastern Shore. As the entire colony grew, the bay was a formidable transportation obstacle for exchanges with the Virginia mainland on the Western Shore. One of the eight original shires of Virginia, Accomac Shire was established there in 1634, eventually becoming the two counties of modern times, Accomack County in the north and Northampton County to the south. In comparison to mainland regions, commerce and growth was limited by the need to cross the Bay. Consequently, little industrial base grew there, with the oceanfront peninsula staying predominantly rural with small towns and villages oriented towards life on the waters, and most residents made their living by farming and working as watermen, both on the bay (locally known as the "bay side") and in the Atlantic Ocean ("sea side").

For the first 350 years, ships and ferry systems provided the primary transportation.

From the early 1930s to 1954, the Virginia Ferry Corporation (VFC), a privately owned public service company managed a scheduled vehicular (car, bus, truck) and passenger ferry service between the Virginia Eastern Shore and Princess Anne County (now part of the City of Virginia Beach) on the mainland Western Shore in the South Hampton Roads area. This system, connecting portions of US 13, was known as the Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry. In 1951, the northern terminus in Delmarva was relocated to a location now within Kiptopeke State Park.

Despite an expanded fleet of large and modern ships by the VFC in the 1940s and early 1950s which were eventually capable of as many as 90 one-way trips each day, the lengthy crossing suffered delays due to heavy traffic and inclement weather.

In 1954, the Virginia General Assembly created a political subdivision, the Chesapeake Bay Ferry District and its governing body, the Chesapeake Bay Ferry Commission. The commission was authorized to acquire the private ferry corporation through bond financing, to improve the existing VFC ferry service.

When the CBBT opened, much of the ferry equipment and vessels used by the Little Creek-Cape Charles Ferry VFC service was sold and moved north to be redeployed to start the Cape May–Lewes Ferry across the 17-mile (27 km) mouth of the Delaware Bay between Cape May, New Jersey and Lewes, Delaware. It still serves transit needs, but the number of pleasure trip passengers increased as the coastal beach resorts developed and grew crowded with vacationers in the next decades, partly due to the improved swifter transportation with highway, bridge, and tunnel access in the region of three states.[5]

Aerial view of the Virginia Beach entrance to the bridge, facing east

In 1956, the General Assembly authorized the Ferry Commission to conduct feasibility studies for the construction of a fixed crossing. The conclusion of the study indicated that a vehicular crossing was feasible.[3]

Consideration was given to service between the Eastern Shore and both the peninsula and South Hampton Roads. Eventually, the shortest route, extending between the Eastern Shore and a point in Princess Anne County at Chesapeake Beach (east of Little Creek, west of Lynnhaven Inlet), was selected. An option to also provide a fixed crossing link to Hampton and the peninsula was not pursued.

The selected route crosses two Atlantic shipping channels: the Thimble Shoals Channel to Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Channel to the northern Chesapeake Bay. High-level bridges were initially considered for traversing these channels. The United States Navy objected to bridging the Thimble Shoals Channel because a bridge collapse (possibly by sabotage) could cut Naval Station Norfolk off from the Atlantic Ocean. Maryland officials expressed similar concerns about the Chesapeake Channel and the Port of Baltimore.[6]

To address these concerns, the engineers recommended a series of bridges and tunnels known as a bridge–tunnel, similar in design to the Hampton Roads Bridge–Tunnel, which had been completed in 1957, but on a considerably longer and larger facility. The tunnel portions, anchored by four man-made islands of approximately five acres (2.0 ha) each, would be extended under the two main shipping channels. The CBBT was designed by the engineering firm Sverdrup & Parcel of St. Louis, Missouri.[6]

View south entering the Thimble Shoal Channel Tunnel

In mid-1960, the Chesapeake Bay Ferry Commission sold $200 million in toll revenue bonds (equivalent to $1.42 billion in 2021 dollars) to private investors, and the proceeds were used to finance the construction of the bridge–tunnel. Funds collected by future tolls were pledged to pay the principal and interest on the bonds. No local, state, or federal tax funds were used in the construction of the project.

Construction contracts were awarded to a consortium of Tidewater Construction Corporation and Merritt-Chapman & Scott Corporation. The steel superstructure for the high-level bridges near the north end of the crossing were fabricated by the American Bridge Division of United States Steel Corporation. Construction of the bridge–tunnel began in October 1960 after a six-month process of assembling necessary equipment from worldwide sources.

The tunnels were constructed using the technique refined by Ole Singstad with the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel, whereby a large ditch was first dug for each tunnel, into which was lowered pre-fabricated tunnel sections cable-suspended from overhead barges. Interior chambers were filled with water to lower the sections, the sections then aligned, bolted together by divers, the water pumped out, and the tunnels finally covered with earth.

The construction was accomplished under the severe conditions imposed by nor'easters, hurricanes, and the unpredictable Atlantic Ocean. During the Ash Wednesday Storm of 1962, much of the partially completed work and a major piece of custom-built equipment, a pile driver barge called "The Big D", were destroyed. Seven workers were killed at various times during the construction. In April 1964, 42 months after construction began, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel opened to traffic and the ferry service discontinued.

The Ferry Commission and transportation district it oversees, created in 1954, were later renamed for the revised mission of building and operating the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel. The CBBT district is a public agency, and it is a legal subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The bridge–tunnel is supported financially by the tolls collected from the motorists who use the facility.

Cargo ships line up to cross the bridge–tunnel complex at night

Eastern Shore native, businessman, and civic leader Lucius J. Kellam Jr. (1911–1995) was the original commission's first chairman. In a commentary at the time of his death in 1995, the Norfolk-based Virginian-Pilot newspaper recalled that Kellam had been involved in bringing the multimillion-dollar bridge–tunnel project from dream to reality.

Before it was built, Kellam handled a political fight over the location, and addressed concerns of the U.S. Navy about prospective hazards to navigation to and from the Norfolk Navy Base at Sewell's Point.

Kellam was also directly involved in the negotiations to finance the ambitious crossing with bonds. According to the newspaper article, "there were not-unfounded fears that (1) storm-driven seas and drifting or off-course vessels could damage, if not destroy, the span and (2) traffic might not be sufficient to service the entire debt in an orderly way. Sure enough, bridge portions of the crossing have occasionally been damaged by vessels, and there was a long period when holders of the riskiest bonds received no interest on their investment."

An icon of eastern Virginia politics, Kellam remained chairman and champion of the CBBT throughout the hard times, and the bondholders were eventually paid as toll revenues caught up with expenses. He continued to serve until he was over 80 years old, finally retiring in 1993. He had held the post for 39 years.

The facility was renamed in Kellam's honor in 1987, over 20 years after it opened.

Info sign at the rest area with map of new bridge

At a cost of $197 million, new parallel two-lane trestles were built both to alleviate traffic and for safety reasons. Immediately after completion of the parallel trestles, traffic was diverted to them and the original trestles and roadway underwent a $20 million retrofit, repairing the wear and tear of 35 years of service and upgrading certain features, such as repaving the road surface. The older portion of the facility was then reopened on April 19, 1999.

The 1995–1999 project increased the capacity of the above-water portion of the facility to four lanes, added wider shoulders for the new southbound portion, facilitated needed repairs, and provided protection against a total closure should a trestle be struck by a ship or otherwise damaged (which had occurred twice in the past); partially for this reason, the parallel trestles are not located immediately adjacent to each other, reducing the chance that both would be damaged during a single incident.

View south exiting the Chesapeake Channel Tunnel

In 2013, the CBBT Commission approved a project to construct a second tunnel under the Thimble Shoal channel for an estimated cost of $756 million. The project received three bids, all of which would use a tunnel boring machine. The winning company was German-based Herrenknecht, whose machine was 325 ft (99 m) long. The machine, nicknamed Chessie in a naming contest, was capable of moving forward through soil at 2.4 in (61 mm) per minute, or about 50 ft (15 m) per day. At that rate, it was estimated that the tunnel would be dug within about one year. Construction work began in 2017 to prepare the location of the tunnels. The affected pier, shop, and restaurant were closed in September 2017. The machine was built in 2018, after some delays, and was shipped to Virginia. After boring, the machine will also be adding the circular concrete segments which will be delivered into the tunnel via mine cars one at a time. Construction was scheduled to finish in 2023.[7][8][9][10] By August 2022, the second tunnel at Thimble Shoal had been delayed to 2027.[11][12]

• Tunnel length: approximately one mile (1.6 km)
• Tunnel diameter:
  • Inner diameter: 39 feet (12 m)[lower-alpha 1]
  • Outer diameter: 42 feet (13 m)
• Construction cost: $755,987,318
• Construction method: Bored tunnel
• Construction start (estimate): October 1, 2017
• Construction completion (estimate): 2023
• Maximum tunnel depth
  • Crown—at its deepest location (mid-channel): 105 feet (32 m) below the water surface
  • Invert—from the top of the roadway at its deepest location: 134 feet (41 m) below the surface
• Soil removal: the approximate amount of soil to be removed by the tunnel boring machine (TBM) is 500,000 cubic yards (380,000 m³).
• Concrete sections: The tunnel will consist of approximately 9,000 individual concrete pieces. Approximately 42,000 cubic yards (32,000 m³) of concrete will be needed to make the tunnel sections.[13]

At the northern end, a parallel Chesapeake Channel Tunnel will be added to finish the entire length to become a four-lane highway from shore to shore. This project is marked to begin in 2035, which would possibly be open for traffic in 2040, assuming there are no setbacks or delays.

In 2021, the United States Department of Transportation loaned $338.6 million to the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel District through the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, with funds provided by the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. The loan would help pay for the construction of both parallel tunnels.[14]