Tunnels

This week brings us to the outskirts of Paris, where we see what happens when the French need to build an interchange between two partially underground autoroutes:

This is the interchange between the Autoroute 14 (running northwest-southeast in the map above) and the Autoroute 86, the Paris Super-Périphérique (second beltway, running southwest-northeast in the map above).

The interchange is unusual in that both autoroutes are partially underground at this point — the A14 in the Tunnel de la Défense, which travels under the La Défense skyscraper district northwest of the City of Paris proper, and the A86 which heads underground to avoid additional disruption to the commune of Nanterre.

In a post yesterday, I speculated on potential NIMBYism from Connecticut’s attorney general if there were any thought of moving the northern portal into Connecticut, to avoid complaints from Westchester County powers-that-be.

It seems that Nutmegger Nimbyism is in force even with the tunnel proposal currently being internal to New York.  An op-ed piece at the Courant opines:

Arguing that another highway will cut air pollution is a little like saying that a drink is the answer to an alcoholic’s craving. Even if it’s true for the short term, the long-term consequences are likely to be a disaster. 

If the last half-century of highway building has taught us anything, it’s that new highways mean more traffic — and pollution.

That’s written like someone who hasn’t had to spend time sitting in traffic trying to get around the Sound (or through New York City).

Yes, there is something to be said for public transportation, as the op-ed advocates.  However, they’re slamming a major feat of civil engineering which taxpayers apparently won’t be asked to fund, and which would ease the strain on a malfunctioning infrastructure.

If anything, doesn’t that arguably free resources to at least maintain, if not expand, existing transit systems in the face of worsening energy costs?

An article in the Courant suggests that the idea of a Long Island Sound crossing between Oyster Bay and Westchester still has some momentum:

It would be the world’s longest highway tunnel, running more than 16 miles under the west end of Long Island Sound. The cost is estimated at $10 billion — and it wouldn’t cost taxpayers a dime. A developer wants to build the tunnel with private money, recouping his costs by charging drivers $25 each way and by selling advertising.

Developer Vincent Polimeni says the tunnel between Oyster Bay and Rye on the New York mainland would let travelers going between Long Island and New England avoid crowded New York City highways and help alleviate traffic congestion.

Though not expected to be completed before 2025, the proposal received renewed attention last week, when a [New York] state Senate committee held a hearing.[...]

At 16 to 18 miles long, depending on the final design, the Long Island Sound project would eclipse Norway’s 15.2-mile Laerdal Tunnel as the world’s longest highway tunnel.

The article mentions that the project is already facing NIMBY opposition in Westchester County. I could observe that some of us in Connecticut would welcome such a tunnel…but such an observation would ignore that Attorney General Blumenthal tends to be a rather vocal NIMBY person himself.

The $25 toll seems steep…until you consider the additional drive time and fuel required to go into the City, or the $46.50 fare to cross on the Port Jefferson ferry.

So, remember how construction of the Big Dig was declared over once contractors had finished plugging leaks?

Seen in the Boston Globe:

Despite repeated assurances that it had Big Dig leaks under control, the Turnpike Authority has allowed the number of leaks to explode in the last two years and has been forced to launch a fresh effort to plug hundreds of trouble spots, according to an analysis of Big Dig records.

A massive effort by Big Dig contractor Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff reduced the number of the most serious leaks near the tunnel roof from more than 800 in March 2005 to just three eight months later, according to Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff records posted on the turnpike’s website. But the state sharply curtailed efforts to seal leaks when it took over maintenance in 2006, and the number of serious leaks going unchecked rose to 237 last month, according to interviews and turnpike records.[...]

It’s nice to see the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority making good use of all those tolls they collect from those of us who have the honor of driving the Pike periodically.

OK, it’s time that I got off my duff and re-launched my once-weekly practice of highlighting an interesting roadgeek feature each Sunday evening.

So, to kick-off the new series of features….

This is the Kawasaki Ukishima Junction outside Tokyo Japan, an interchange of the Bayshore Route (首都高速道路湾岸線, “Wangan-sen”, National Route 357) and the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line (東京湾アクアライン, National Route 409).

The Wangan-sen is a toll expressway running over and between a series of islands on the east side of Tokyo Bay from Yokohama to Ichikawa, while the Aqua-Line provides a bridge-tunnel crossing of Tokyo Bay between Kawasaki and Kisarazu.

So, we have an interchange on an island, with two tunnel portals adjoining the interchange.  Cool!

Wikipedia Japan has a short entry on the interchange (Japanese or Google-translated to English), which provides a little more information, along with links to connecting highways.

Over the past several decades, there have been many proposals to build a crossing across Long Island Sound. Given that access to/from Long Island by road requires either passing through the traffic hell that is New York City or a ferry ride, a crossing seems like a good idea to many who live on Long Island or have business there….at least until the expense of building such a crossing (and the taxes or tolls necessary to support such a feat) is considered.

Via misc.transport.road, I came across a pointer to a WCBS-AM report that someone’s giving the concept serious thought again:

Developer Vincent Polimeni is heading consortium that is proposing the construction of a 16-mile-long tunnel under the Long Island Sound. The Cross Sound Link would go from Syosset to Rye.

A pdf file on the Cross Sound Link site goes into a few more details. The paragraph from the report that catches my eye:

No taxpayer dollars would be used to fund the $8 to $10 billion project. Tax-free bonds would be employed and investors around the world would have the option of purchasing
them, as they do for any significant infrastructure project. The bonds would be paid off by
the vehicular drivers who will pay as much as $30 to use the tunnel, but whose price would
rise or fall depending on congestion pricing strategies employed in concert with
transportation officials throughout the region.

Tolls of up to $30? Ouch!

I suppose it still beats the ferry fare (up to $61/car) and rush-hour traffic in the City….but that’s still enough pain to give serious consideration to the alternatives.

When I first heard of the idea several months ago, I thought it was a big scheme likely to go nowhere due to the extreme magnitude of the project. However, judging by this Bloomberg article, it’s apparently got some legs.

The project, which Russia is coordinating with the U.S. and Canada, would take 10 to 15 years to complete, Viktor Razbegin, deputy head of industrial research at the Russian Economy Ministry, told reporters in Moscow today. State organizations and private companies in partnership would build and control the route, known as TKM-World Link, he said.

A 6,000-kilometer (3,700-mile) transport corridor from Siberia into the U.S. will feed into the tunnel, which at 64 miles will be more than twice as long as the underwater section of the Channel Tunnel between the U.K. and France, according to the plan. The tunnel would run in three sections to link the two islands in the Bering Strait between Russia and the U.S.

“This will be a business project, not a political one,” Maxim Bystrov, deputy head of Russia’s agency for special economic zones, said at the media briefing. Russian officials will formally present the plan to the U.S. and Canadian governments next week, Razbegin said.

Apparently, the current price tag for the project would be about $65 billion, with most of the expense going to build the thousands of miles of access railway in Siberia, Alaska, the Yukon, British Columbia, and Alberta. The plan also includes provisions for a intercontinental gas pipeline, fiber optic telecom wires, and electricity. Apparently the payback period on the project is 20 years.

I can’t imagine how the project will get through the environmental hurdles that will certainly be erected in the U.S. and Canada, given that the rail corridor would have to cross an awful lot of sub-arctic wilderness.

Other thoughts that come to mind:

• Wouldn’t it be terribly inefficient to transport electricity over that long of a distance, given current technology?
   
• If the project happens, and this rail link becomes a viable way to transport material Eurasia and North America, is our rail infrastructure capable of handling the increased demand that would almost certainly arise?
   
• Perhaps someday in a couple of decades it will be possible to determine which really is worse - rail passenger service in Russia, or rail passenger service in the United States.

Although the Chunnel is a rail tunnel, rather than a highway tunnel, I thought the portals deserved some attention.

First, the French portal:

and, across the English Channel, the English portal:

The Chunnel is the world’s longest undersea rail tunnel. Opened in 1995, it provides a rail link between England and mainland Europe. The two terminals shown in maps above provide facilities for passenger vehicles and cargo trucks to board and disembark shuttle trains to quickly cross traverse the English Channel.

So, how do you feature a big tunnel on a highway features website when using Google Maps?

Easy — you thank your lucky stars that Google is sometimes slow in updating their imagery.

The map that shows as of this writing is somewhat dated. It shows I-93 in downtown Boston, just a bit north of Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall. However, this roadway no longer exists, having been replaced by the Big Dig.

This project, costing roughly $15 billion, is one of the largest civil works projects in U.S. history. The aim was to replace the perpetually congested 6-lane elevated Central Artery with an 8-lane tunnel, above which is being created potentially nice linear park through downtown Boston.

For more information, see Wikipedia.

From the Boston Globe:

John J. Keaveney — in a starkly-worded two-page memo sent in 1999 to Robert Coutts, senior project manager for Modern Continental — wrote that he could not “comprehend how this structure can withhold the test of time.”

“This structure” is, unfortunately, a Big Dig tunnel.presumably the one which had part of its ceiling tile structure crush a car recently.