Look, if you're going to be stuck in traffic under a river, you might as well know the history of your concrete purgatory. Don't confuse this with the Midtown Tunnel (Virginia). Pay attention.
I-264 Downtown Tunnel
Inside the Eastbound I-264 Downtown Tunnel, after its 2014 renovation as part of the Elizabeth River Tunnels Project. Notice the distinct lack of charm.
| Official name | Downtown Tunnel |
| Location | Stitches Portsmouth to Norfolk |
| Status | Unfortunately, open to traffic |
| Route | I-264 / US 460 Alt. |
| Operation | |
| Opened | • First tube: 1952 • The sequel: 1987 |
| Owner | VDOT (in name) |
| Operator | Elizabeth River Crossings OpCo, LLC (in practice, for a very long time) |
| Traffic | A soul-crushing 72,000 vehicles per day |
| Toll | The price of passage: • With E-ZPass: • 2.50 (peak) • Pay by Plate: • 6.37 (peak) Peak hours, for your scheduling displeasure, are 5:30–9 a.m. and 2:30–7 p.m. |
| Technical Details | |
| No. of lanes | 4 (two in each direction, a perfect bottleneck) |
| Operating speed | A hopeful 35 miles per hour (56 km/h) |
| Tunnel clearance | 13 feet 6 inches. Don't test it. |
The Downtown Tunnel, a necessary artery carrying Interstate 264 (I-264) and U.S. Route 460 Alternate (US 460 Alt.), burrows under the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River. It exists as the primary concrete stitch binding the independent City of Portsmouth to the independent City of Norfolk within the sprawling urban landscape of South Hampton Roads, Virginia. Emerging from the depths on the Norfolk side, it doesn't grant you freedom but instead feeds you directly onto the Berkley Bridge. This combined structure serves as a critical junction, connecting to Interstate 464 which funnels traffic towards the City of Chesapeake, and continuing I-264 towards the downtown and Waterside districts of Norfolk, before that interstate makes its final, weary crawl to Virginia Beach.
While technically owned by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), the tunnel is operated and maintained by a private entity called Elizabeth River Crossings. This arrangement is the result of a 58-year public–private partnership concession agreement—a contract long enough to see generations of commuters pay for its existence. What was once a toll-free crossing became a source of revenue on February 1, 2014, when open road tolling was implemented. The official reason, of course, was to fund desperately needed repairs and expansion. The unofficial result is a daily electronic handshake that relieves you of your money.
History
Any time you build a complex interchange in a downtown metropolitan area with an underwater tunnel and a bridge with a liftspan for river traffic, you have a real challenge. Nowhere else in Virginia can you come out of a tunnel and cross a drawbridge.
— Jack Hodge, Former VDOT Chief Engineer, stating the obvious with admirable gravity.
Back in the mid-1940s, Virginia's legislators grew tired of the quaint but inefficient vehicle ferry systems that dotted the state's waterways. Progress, in the form of concrete and steel, was deemed necessary. A revenue bond act passed by the General Assembly empowered a commission which, during the 1946-47 fiscal year, decided to erect toll bridges to supplant the ferries on the York River at Yorktown and the Rappahannock River at Grey’s Point. The state also moved to acquire the private ferries navigating Hampton Roads between Norfolk and the Lower Peninsula.
This wave of modernization led to the creation of the original two-lane Downtown Tunnel, then known as the Norfolk-Portsmouth Bridge-Tunnel. It opened in 1952, burrowing under the Elizabeth River to become the first fixed crossing directly linking the two cities, beating the more famous Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel to completion by five years. The project was financed and constructed by the Elizabeth River Tunnel Commission using toll revenue bonds. The initial toll was a modest 25 cents, a price that now seems like a relic from a forgotten civilization.
By the late 1980s, the single tunnel was groaning under the weight of increased traffic. So, between 1988 and 1989, as part of a larger expansion of I-264, a second, parallel tunnel was constructed. This created the current configuration of two tunnels, each with two lanes, dedicating one to each direction of travel. In conjunction with this project, the adjacent Berkley Bridge was rebuilt and widened to eight lanes. This expansion also created the elevated interchange connecting I-264 to the newly built I-464, looming just over the tunnel's eastern portal. As a supposed gesture of goodwill, the tolls were removed at that time. It was a temporary reprieve.
More recently, between 2019 and 2022, the tunnel's billing system developed a ghost. A surge of fake toll violations were issued to drivers across the country, many of whom had never driven through the tunnel, let alone visited the state of Virginia. The E-ZPass system, the mechanism meant to streamline the process, drew heavy criticism for its spectacular failure to address the fraudulent charges, leaving baffled citizens to fight bills for crossings they never made.
Public-Private Partnership and 2013 Rehabilitation
Further information: Elizabeth River Tunnels Project and Elizabeth River Crossings
The story of the new tolls begins in 2004, when VDOT, facing a mountain of infrastructure needs and a valley of funding, sent out an informal request for information. They were fishing, trying to see if any private entities were interested in a public-private partnership to construct a parallel Midtown Tunnel and extend the MLK Freeway to I-264. The Downtown Tunnel, at this point, wasn't even part of the conversation.
Of the three companies that responded, two—including the eventual winner, Skanska—pointed to an earlier study. The conclusion was grimly pragmatic: the only way such a massive project could be financially viable was to impose tolls not only on the new construction but also on the existing, and then-free, Downtown Tunnel. The trap was set. VDOT, seeing its path forward, began formally soliciting bids from the private sector to execute the newly christened Elizabeth River Tunnels Project, which now conveniently included the "rehabilitation" of the Downtown Tunnel.
A new corporate entity, Elizabeth River Crossings (ERC), was forged for this purpose. It was a joint venture between the Swedish construction giant Skanska and the Australian investment firm Macquarie Group—a perfect marriage of engineering prowess and financial leverage. After a protracted review process mandated by Virginia's Public Private Transportation Act, then-Governor Bob McDonnell and VDOT executed the Comprehensive Agreement with ERC on December 5, 2011. The deal was simple: VDOT would retain ownership and oversight, but ERC would finance, build, operate, and maintain the tunnels. In exchange, they would collect the toll revenue for the next 58 years.
The agreement mandated a series of upgrades for the Downtown Tunnel, largely based on NFPA 502 safety standards, to drag the aging structure into compliance. The work included:
- Removing the suspended ceiling of the eastbound tunnel. The westbound tunnel's ceiling had already been removed in 2011 over safety concerns, which tells you all you need to know about its condition.
- Tearing out the old, buzzing lighting and replacing it with more energy-efficient LED systems.
- Installing a new longitudinal ventilation system, which consists of eight sets of massive jet fans (16 in each tunnel) to move air and, in a worst-case scenario, smoke.
- Removing the obsolete police booths and performing other cosmetic work to make the concrete tube look slightly less dystopian.
Work on the westbound tunnel commenced on August 9, 2013. The eastbound tunnel followed on July 25, 2014. The entire rehabilitation project for the Downtown Tunnel was officially declared complete on November 3, 2016, leaving commuters with a slightly safer, better-lit, and permanently tolled passage.