06/27/2024 – American Road & Transportation Builders Association
With a long, painful moan that belied her remarkable achievement, the 4,700-ton tunnel boring machine known simply as Mary breached the confines of the tunnel she had burrowed, marking a major milestone in one of America’s biggest and most complex transportation construction projects.
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: July 17, 2024