Chesapeake Bay Bridge - Tunnel 2013

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel

 

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel (CBBT) is a 23-mile (37 km) bridge–tunnel crossing at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the Hampton Roads harbor, and nearby mouths of the James and Elizabeth Rivers in the American state of Virginia. It connects Northampton County on the Delmarva Peninsula and Eastern Shore with Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Portsmouth on the Western Shore and South side / Tidewater which are part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of eight close cities around the harbor's shores and peninsula. The Bridge-Tunnel originally combined 12 miles (19 km) of trestle, two 1-mile-long (1.6 km) tunnels, four artificial islands, four high-level bridges, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of causeway, and 5.5 miles (8.9 km) of northeast and southwest approach roads—crossing the Chesapeake Bay and preserving traffic on the Thimble Shoals and Chesapeake dredged shipping channels leading to the Atlantic. It replaced vehicle ferry services that operated from South Hampton Roads and from the Virginia Peninsula since the 1930s. Financed by toll revenue bonds, the Bridge–Tunnel was opened on April 15, 1964,[1] and remains one of only ten bridge–tunnel systems in the world, three of which are located in the water dominated Hampton Roads area of Tidewater Virginia.

 

As of May 2018 the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel has been crossed by more than 130 million vehicles.[2] The CBBT complex carries U.S. Route 13, the main north–south highway on Virginia's Eastern Shore on the Delmarva peninsula, and, as part of the East Coast's longstanding Ocean Highway, provides the only straight direct link along the East Coast and Atlantic Ocean, between the Eastern Shore and South Hampton Roads regions, as well as an alternate route to link the Northeast U.S.A. and points in between with Norfolk and further south to the Carolinas and Florida. The Bridge–Tunnel saves motorists 95 miles (153 km) and 1 1⁄2 hours on a trip between Virginia Beach/Norfolk and points north and east of the Chesapeake and Delaware Valley, River and Bay without going through the traffic congestion in the Baltimore–Washington Metropolitan Area further west in Maryland and Northern Virginia. The $15 toll is partially offset by some savings of highway tolls in Maryland and Delaware and avoiding often heavy traffic on north-south Interstate 95 (I-95) built in the 1960s and completed in the late 1970s and parallel older United States Route 1 (US-1) from the 1920s. From 1995 to 1999, at an additional cost of almost $200 million, the capacity of the above-water portion of bridges on the facility was increased and widened to four lanes. An upgrade of the two-lane tunnels is currently underway. [3] The crossing was officially named the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge–Tunnel in August 1987, 23 years after opening, honoring one of the civic leaders who had long worked for its development, construction and operation; it continues however to be best known as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge–Tunnel. The complex was built by and is operated by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel District, a political subdivision of the Commonwealth of Virginia governed by the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission and in cooperation with the state Department of Transportation. Costs are recovered through toll collections. In 2002, a Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC) study commissioned by the Virginia General Assembly concluded that "given the inability of the state to fund future capital requirements of the CBBT, the District and Commission should be retained to operate and maintain the Bridge–Tunnel as a toll facility in perpetuity."

 

Occasionally because of similar names, the Bridge-Tunnel is often confused with the Chesapeake Bay Bridge (also known as the Governor William Preston Lane, Jr. Memorial Bridge) further north in Maryland crossing the middle portion of the Bay from Annapolis to Kent Island on the Maryland Eastern Shore of Delmarva. It was built with two lanes and a higher suspension segment in the middle from 1949 - 1952, with a second parallel wider span of three lanes in 1973. It is one of the longest and highest bridges in the world.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesapeake_Bay_Bridge%E2%80%93Tunnel

 

 

Chesapeake Bay

 

-was formed nearly 12,000 years ago when glaciers melted and flooded the Susquehanna River valley;

 

-is—most historians believe—named after the Algonquin word chesepiooc, meaning "great shellfish bay;"

 

-is approximately 200 miles long, stretching from Havre de Grace, Maryland, to Norfolk, Virginia;

 

-has an average depth of 21 feet (the deepest part of the Bay, a.k.a. "The Hole," is 174 feet deep and located off of Bloody Point, southeast of

Annapolis, Maryland;

 

-ranges from 3.4 to 35 miles wide;

 

-holds more than 15 trillion gallons of water;

 

-supports 348 species of finfish and 173 species of shellfish;

 

-supports more than 3,600 species of plant and animal life, including 2,700 types of plants and more than 16 species of underwater grasses;

 

-is fed by 50 major tributaries (or streams and rivers) every day—the largest of these are the Susquehanna, Potomac, Rappahannock, York, and James;

 

-produces more than 500 millions pounds of seafood harvest each year.

 

Source: www.cbf.org/about-the-bay/chesapeake-bay-watershed-geogra...

 

 

Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge

 

Fisherman Island is the southernmost island on the Delmarva Peninsula chain of barrier islands. Located at the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, the island is subject to great changes in its landscape from waves and runoff. It first formed about 200 to 250 years ago.

 

Fisherman Island National Wildlife Refuge is located within the United States Fish and Wildlife Service's Eastern Shore of Virginia National Wildlife Refuge, and is cut in half by the presence of U.S. Highway 13 and the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel. The refuge is closed to the public.

 

The island is the habitat to migratory waterfowl, shorebirds, and nesting waterbirds. In September 2003, the island was almost entirely flooded by Hurricane Isabel.

 

Source: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisherman_Island_(Virginia)

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