/prod01/channel_9/hrbt-expansion-home/media/hrbt-expansion/hrbt-gradient.png)
06/17/2025 - WHRO
HRBT to break through on latest tunnel, route vehicles onto new bridge this fall
Bridge tunnel expansion work is expected to be completed within two years. The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project will pass a pair of milestones this fall.
06/17/2025 - The Virginian Pilot
HRBT’s 2nd tunnel nears completion as project remains on schedule, within budget
Since moving its completion date back significantly last spring, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project has remained on schedule and its total budget has not changed.
06/09/2025 – The Virginian Pilot
As expansion continues, summer drivers to see new looks at Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel
As the summer travel season picks up, visitors will have a much different view — and some different routes — at the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel as a result of the ongoing expansion project. Traffic counts at the primary route between the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads have grown steadily ever since it opened in the 1950s.
06/03/2025 – 13NewsNow
HRBT Expansion project update ahead of summer travel season
As summer traffic picks up in Hampton Roads, construction on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) Expansion project is ramping up and is expected to impact travelers in the coming months. The Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) reports that nearly 70% of the expansion work is complete. The project aims to double capacity across the HRBT corridor as part of a larger 45-mile network of express lanes stretching between Newport News and Chesapeake.
05/19/2025 – Engineering News Record
Milestone Tunnels are Centerpiece of Landmark Virginia Bridge-tunnel Expansion
Constructed as the world’s first bridge-tunnel complex in 1957, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel was an engineering milestone in a natural harbor already rich in history, from the landing point for voyagers who would establish the first permanent English settlement upriver at Jamestown to the first battle of ironclad vessels during the Civil War.
05/13/2025 – WTKR-TV
Binoculars, cameras, dogs: Keeping nesting shore birds away from HRBT construction
Spring brings dozens of vulnerable bird species to nest around the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel expansion. A group of bird monitors and a few smart dogs are making sure they don't get too close.
05/05/2025 – WAVY-TV
Only on 10: There’s something about mining with Mary as part of the HRBT expansion work
If you drive across the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel, you can’t miss its $4 billion expansion, expected to be a game changer for transportation in the region and especially there, where traffic snarls remain a quality-of-life issue for the region’s drivers.
02/27/2025 – Virginia Business
A sampling of Virginia’s major road projects
The state’s largest highway construction project is making steady progress, albeit now on an adjusted schedule. The $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion will widen the four-lane segments of the 9.9-mile Interstate 64 corridor between Norfolk and Hampton to six lanes on land and eight under the water with twin two-lane tunnels. The Virginia Department of Transportation contracted with Hampton Roads Connector Partners, a joint venture led by Dragados USA, for the project. The contract originally ended in November 2025, but in March 2024, VDOT and its partners announced an amendment to the comprehensive agreement, including moving the substantial completion deadline to February 2027 and the final completion to August 2027.
01/10/2025 – WTKR
Still two years away from scheduled completion, the Project Director for the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion says 2025 will be the "most meaningful" year for the people driving the iconic four-mile span.
10/18/2024 – The Virginian-Pilot
Mary, the enormous drill doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project, began boring the second tunnel Thursday after a six-month break.
12/4/2024 – 13 News Now
This morning, leaders with the Virginia Department of Transportation held a grand opening for the new Hampton roads Bridge-Tunnel Welcome Center in Norfolk. The City of Norfolk’s former visitor's center in Ocean View has been transformed into the center focused on $4 million Hampton Bridge-Tunnel expansion project.
8/15/2024 – Roads & Bridges
The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion project in Virginia hit a milestone this week. The first of four gantries was extracted from the receiving pit. The first gantry was lifted out onto the North Island. It will be turned around and placed back in the pit to join the tunnel boring machine as it gets ready to begin boring the second tunnel.
05/25/2024 – The Virginian-Pilot
Bryan Jackson passed the island every day when he lived in Hampton and worked at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard as a sandblaster. The island looked small to him. “I always wanted to be on that little island,” he said. On April 17, Jackson gave up a day’s pay, $400, to be on the island — the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel’s north island.
05/03/02024 – WAVY
A significant traffic shift at the entrance of the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel began overnight, as part of the HRBT’s major expansion project. According to VDOT Communications Manager Paula Miller, the first vehicle crossed onto the new eastbound bridge around 1 a.m. on Friday, May 3.
4/29/2024 – Equipment World
Mary, the tunnel boring machine, has completed the first half of her mission to build two tunnels for the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion, the largest highway project in Virginia history. Mary broke through the North Island headwall on her yearlong dig of the state’s first bored roadway tunnel and only the third in the U.S. She dug through 7,900 feet of soil while placing concrete segments along the way, according to the Virginia Department of Transportation.
04/27/2024 – WTKR
The massive boring machine that’s being used in the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion project reached a huge milestone.
04/18/2024 – VPM
Crews of workers from Spain who have dug an 8,000-foot tunnel under Hampton Roads for the past year waved Spanish flags and cheered from the top of a huge pit on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel’s north island.
04/18/2024 – The Virginian-Pilot
The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel Expansion Project reached another milestone Wednesday as Mary, the affectionate name for the massive tunnel boring machine doing much of the heavy lifting, broke through onto the North Island, marking roughly the halfway point of her journey.
3/29/2024 – Engineering News Record
Agency’s largest-ever highway construction project boasts its largest single continuous concrete casting
01/06/2024 Virginian-Pilot
The massive tunnel boring machine has now excavated half of the first tunnel in the huge infrastructure project.
10/30/2023 – Virginia Business
Off and on since the 1980s, John Rivera has commuted from his home in Hampton to Naval Station Norfolk.
He’s seen Interstate 64 grow from two to four lanes in the region, but these days, Rivera, a ship maintenance manager for the U.S. Navy, mainly sees lots of traffic jams caused by the $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) expansion project, for which construction began in November 2020.
09/07/2023 – 13 News Now
The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) Expansion Project is the largest highway construction project in Virginia’s history, but the construction has also had the unintended consequence of unearthing artifacts from history. The HRBT Expansion has the goal of widening the current four-lane segments along ten miles of the I-64 corridor in Norfolk and Hampton but has hit some roadblocks, or cannonballs, during its years-long project.
08/12/2023 – WTVR (Richmond)
VDOT officials provided drone footage from June showing the progress on the project.
5/16/2023 – VPM
Cars traveling on the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel whizz past Fort Wool, while construction on the major expansion project continues. But you can’t hear any of that on the island fort over the cacophony of seabird shrieks. Constructed more than 200 years ago, Fort Wool is now a nesting site for thousands of birds who have made themselves quite at home.
03/13/2023 – World Highways
A huge new tunnel expansion project in Virginia is expected to cost US$3.8 billion, making it the biggest highway works planned in the state. The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) Expansion project is being managed by the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT).
03/02/2023 – TUNNEL BUSINESS MAGAZINE
Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) Expansion project for the Virginia Department of Transportation is the largest highway construction project in the state’s history. The project involves widening the current four-lane segments along nearly 10 miles of the I-64 corridor in Norfolk and Hampton, with new twin tunnels across the harbor. The expansion will increase capacity, ease major congestion and enhance travel time reliability.
Last updated: June 25, 2025
Please note that this file is not ADA compliant. Choose one of below options:
.png){kind=logo}
