Virginia - Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) (2022)

To view this drive in hyper-lapse visit...
• Virginia - Hampton Roa...
The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) is a 3.5-mile (5.6 km)-long Hampton Roads crossing for Interstate 64 and U.S. Route 60. It is a four-lane facility comprising bridges, trestles, man-made islands, and tunnels under the main shipping channels for Hampton Roads harbor in the southeastern portion of Virginia in the United States.
It connects the historic Phoebus area of the independent city of Hampton near Fort Monroe on the Virginia Peninsula with Willoughby Spit in the city of Norfolk in South Hampton Roads, and is part of the Hampton Roads Beltway.
Prior to the opening of the HRBT (and well before even the HRBT's counterpart the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel), VDOT operated ferries to carry vehicle traffic across the harbor from the Southside to the Peninsula. There were two routes: one from Hampton Boulevard near Naval Station Norfolk to downtown Newport News, and a second, less popular route from Willoughby Spit to Fort Monroe in Hampton. Traffic at the time was typically about 2500 vehicles per day. The original two-lane structure opened November 1, 1957 at a cost of $44 million as a toll facility. As population and traffic grew, construction on a parallel bridge-tunnel facility began in 1972. The construction of the $95 million second portion of the HRBT was funded as part of the Interstate Highway System as authorized under the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, as a portion of I-64, which means that it was funded with 90% FHWA funds from the Highway Trust Fund and 10% state DOT funds. The second span opened on November 1, 1976 as a toll-free roadway.
The HRBT has two 12-foot (3.7 m)-wide lanes each way, on separately built bridge-tunnel structures. The bridge-tunnel was originally signed as State Route 168 and U.S. Route 60. It later received the Interstate 64 designation when the second span opened in 1976, and, much later, SR 168 was truncated south of the crossing
Part of the design features of the HRBT involved the use of man-made islands for the tunnel portals at the place where Hampton Roads flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel south portal island connects to about 20 acres (8 ha) of land that is the site of Fort Wool, a fort during the American Civil War, World War I and World War II, and a public park since 1970. Fort Wool is on a man-made island known as Rip Raps, created in 1818. There is a small earthen causeway that connects Fort Wool to the HRBT south portal island including the island across the navigational channel of the mouth of Hampton Roads from Old Point Comfort was created for Fort Calhoun (a portion of the Fort Monroe complex later renamed Fort Wool).

[@meganfaver]

I have to drive this in a few weeks and I feel like I’m going to have a panic attack

[@BeingBetter]

Did you do it? Were you ok?

[@charliewatkins4571]

Ugh. I'll take the car ferry!

[@Cambpro]

Skip to 08:30 when he finally enters the tunnel.