Don't confuse this with the Queens-Midtown Tunnel or the Downtown Tunnel. You'd think the names were chosen to be deliberately unhelpful. They were.
Midtown Tunnel
| Traffic on the Norfolk Approach to the Midtown Tunnel |
|---|
| Overview |
|---|
| Location |
| • Portsmouth, Virginia • Norfolk, Virginia |
| Status |
| • eastbound: open to traffic • westbound: open to traffic |
| Route |
| US 58 |
| Crosses |
| Elizabeth River |
| Operation |
| Opened |
| • eastbound: 1962 • westbound: 2016 |
| Owner |
| VDOT |
| Operator |
| Elizabeth River Crossings |
| Traffic |
| vehicle |
| Toll |
| • With E-ZPass: • 2.33 peak [a] • Pay by Plate: • 6.02 peak |
| Vehicles per day |
| 32,000 [1] |
| Technical |
| No. of lanes |
| 4 |
| Operating speed |
| 35 miles per hour (56 km/h) |
| Tunnel clearance |
| 13.5 ft |
| Width |
| 8.5 feet (without permit); 11 feet (with permit) |
The Midtown Tunnel is a stretch of submerged roadway that drags U.S. Route 58 under the Southern Branch of the Elizabeth River in the perpetually congested South Hampton Roads area of Virginia. It serves as a concrete artery linking the cities of Portsmouth and Norfolk, assuming your definition of "linking" includes sitting in traffic and contemplating your life choices.
Though technically owned by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT), the entity that actually runs it is a private company called Elizabeth River Crossings. This arrangement is part of a 58-year public–private partnership concession agreement—a contract long enough to see a generation born, live, and die paying tolls. Once a mercifully free passage, VDOT implemented open road tolling on February 1, 2014, because the only way to fund repairs and expansion for something this broken is to make you pay for the privilege of using it.
History
The original two-lane Midtown Tunnel was completed and opened to traffic on September 6, 1962. It was designed to supplement the overburdened Downtown Tunnel and the Berkley Bridge, becoming the second permanent crossing to span the Elizabeth River between Portsmouth and Norfolk. Its construction was financed by the Elizabeth River Tunnel Commission through the issuance of toll revenue bonds, a classic method of funding infrastructure by borrowing against future misery.
Later, between 1988 and 1989, a major expansion of I-264 saw the Downtown Tunnel and Berkley Bridge rebuilt and widened. In a rare and fleeting moment of public generosity, the tolls on both the Midtown and Downtown tunnels were removed. This brief era of free passage, of course, was not destined to last.
For a time, there was a comically short HOV lane on the westbound approach to the tunnel, just before the entrance. Spanning a grand total of 25 yards, this lane existed prior to 2007, allowing high-occupancy vehicles the profound advantage of merging a few car lengths ahead of everyone else. It was removed during construction in 2007, its noble purpose served.
The fact that the Midtown Tunnel was woefully inadequate for its traffic load was not a state secret. The need for expanded capacity has been a well-known, exhaustively documented problem for decades. The issue, as always, was figuring out who would pay for it. After years of inertia, the Hampton Roads Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) conducted a study in 2006. Its purpose was to explore the feasibility of using tolls to finance the region's most critical unfunded transportation projects, with the Midtown Tunnel at the top of the list.
The study reached a predictable conclusion: the expansion of the Midtown Tunnel and the associated Martin Luther King Freeway Extension could be financially viable, but only if tolls were reinstated. To ensure a captive audience, this financial strategy also required tolling the parallel Downtown Tunnel. This wasn't merely about funding; it was a "congestion management plan" designed to prevent drivers from seeking a free alternative, thereby ensuring a steady revenue stream by eliminating choice.
Issues
Congestion
When the tunnel first opened, it saw a modest 8,400 vehicles per day. A quaint number, in retrospect. As port traffic between the Norfolk International Terminals and the Portsmouth Marine Terminal exploded through the 1980s and beyond, the tunnel's traffic volumes swelled relentlessly. By 2013, that number had ballooned to 40,000 vehicles per day, a figure far exceeding its original design capacity. Roughly 3% of that traffic consists of trucks with at least one trailer, the kind of heavy vehicles that crawl out of the port and further choke the already constricted passage. [1] The result is a daily, ritualistic traffic jam where hours of congestion are not an anomaly but the accepted norm. [2]
Floodgate failure
In September 2003, Hurricane Isabel offered a masterclass in what happens when infrastructure meets incompetence. The Midtown Tunnel, like other regional tunnels, is equipped with massive floodgates designed to be sealed shut during events like hurricanes. As Isabel bore down and floodwaters began to rise, workers discovered a slight problem: they couldn't close the gates. Metal plates had been bolted and tack-welded to the roadbed, physically obstructing the gates from creating a seal.
The result was a catastrophic failure. The gates could not be fully closed, and the Elizabeth River poured in, filling the tunnel with an estimated 44 million gallons of brackish water and sediment. While the tunnel’s core structure remained intact, its electrical and mechanical systems were devastated. It was closed for nearly a month as crews pumped out the water, cleared the debris, and performed emergency repairs.
An investigation later determined that managers at the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) had neglected to adequately test the floodgates. It's one thing to have a safety feature; it's another to ensure it actually works. In the wake of this embarrassing and costly incident, VDOT was forced to overhaul its operating procedures for all its tunnels. The event also lent a new urgency to studies about creating additional harbor crossings, as it became painfully clear how vulnerable the existing ones were.
Expansion, Rehab and Elizabeth River Crossings
Public Private Partnership
After innumerable studies and failed legislative attempts to secure public funding, Governor Bob McDonnell and VDOT threw in the towel in 2011. They entered into a comprehensive agreement with a private consortium, Elizabeth River Crossings (ERC), to finally address the tunnel's problems. The deal tasked ERC with building a new, parallel Midtown Tunnel; rehabilitating the existing one; overhauling the Downtown Tunnels; and extending the Martin Luther King Freeway.
Under the terms of this 58-year concession, VDOT retains ownership and oversight—a comforting thought—while ERC handles the financing, construction, operation, and maintenance. ERC also assumed the risk of delivering the project on a performance-based, fixed-price, fixed-date contract, a clause meant to protect taxpayers from the cost overruns and delays that plague public works projects. [3] [4] The project's funding is a cocktail of sources: toll revenue, private equity, contributions from the Commonwealth of Virginia, and a low-interest loan from the Federal Highway Administration. [5] The formal transfer of operations to ERC took place on July 12, 2012. [6]
Construction and rehabilitation
Work on the new tunnel began in November 2012, not in Virginia, but in Sparrows Point, Maryland, where the tunnel’s massive concrete elements were fabricated. The project involved constructing 11 of these enormous sections, each of which was then sealed and towed down the Chesapeake Bay to the project site in Portsmouth. There, they were sunk, positioned under the Elizabeth River, and connected to form the new tube. By March 2015, the first six elements were in place. [7]
With the new tunnel complete, traffic patterns were permanently altered. The original Midtown Tunnel was converted to carry one-way eastbound traffic from Portsmouth to Norfolk. The new, two-lane tunnel was dedicated to westbound traffic, flowing from Norfolk to Portsmouth. The new westbound tunnel officially opened to traffic at 1:40 p.m. EDT on June 17, 2016. With traffic diverted, rehabilitation work on the old eastbound tunnel could finally begin, a process that was completed on September 1, 2017. [8]
Tolling
The entire financial structure of this massive project hinges on tolls. They were originally scheduled to begin in the late summer of 2012, shortly after ERC took over operations. However, the McDonnell administration, perhaps sensing public outrage, authorized a $100 million payment to ERC to "buydown" the tolls, delaying their implementation until January 2014. This pause also provided time for a civil lawsuit challenging the legality of the tolling agreement to wind its way to the Virginia Supreme Court. In November 2013, the court ruled in favor of the state, clearing the final obstacle for tolling to begin in February 2014. The tolls are scheduled to remain in place until April 13, 2070. You should mark your calendar.
The initial toll rates were set to be 1.84 during peak hours, with heavy vehicles facing charges of 7.34, respectively. [4] Before they could take effect, another political intervention occurred. Governor Terry McAuliffe and VDOT reached a new agreement with ERC, paying the company an additional 1 (peak) for cars, with heavy vehicles paying 4.00. This relief was designed to be short-lived, with a planned 25¢ increase each year until the new Midtown Tunnel opened. At that point, the rates were set to revert to their originally scheduled, higher levels. [9] [10]
After that, the agreement stipulates that rates will increase annually. The increase will be determined by a factor equal to the greater of the change in the Consumer Price Index or a flat 3.5 percent. [11] In short, the cost of crossing the river is guaranteed to rise, forever.
Notes
• ^ Peak hours are 5:30 - 9:00 a.m., 2:30 - 7:00 p.m.