Second Hampton Bridge-Tunnel Complete

The second Hampton Roads bridge-tunnel, which cost $96,000,000, opened to traffic on June 3, 1976. It is a two-lane facility carrying traffic across 3.5 miles of water between Hampton and Norfolk, Virginia, and parallels a bridge-tunnel crossing built in 1957. Pile bent trestle bridges carry traffic from the mainland to islands at each end of the tunnel. Steel tunnel sections 350 ft long were fabricated and outfitted, then towed 6.5 miles to the site and submerged into a trench to rest on a prepared gravel bed. The existing tunnel, which was upgraded with new safety and traffic control systems and new pavement, was not damaged during new tunnel construction, even though it was less than 250 ft away.