Big Dig

Traffic enters the Thomas P. O'Neill Jr. Tunnel, the major component of the Big Dig on Dec. 8, 2007, in Boston. The Big Dig, the nation's most complex and costliest highway project, was completed in 2007.

(AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

Syracuse, N.Y. --There's not a lot tunnel building going on in the United States.

Four highway tunnels have been completed over the last 10 years in the U.S. Four more tunnel projects are under construction or in design. And one long discussed project that would have tunneled underneath a national forest in California was dropped.

Could be a tunnel in Syracuse's future for Interstate 81?

After a tunnel was initially rejected, a tunnel or depressed highway is back on the table as an option to replace Interstate 81's 1.4 mile section of raised highway in Syracuse.

The DOT at first rejected seven tunnel options, saying they were too expensive, difficult to build and took too long to complete. The tunnels were estimated to cost $2.5 billion to $3.1 billion.

At the urging of tunnel advocates, Gov. Andrew Cuomo in January ordered the state Department of Transportation to hire a consultant to once again look at the feasibility of digging a tunnel for the highway.

The DOT had settled on two options for replacing I-81. It would either spend $1.7 billion to rebuild the elevated highway taller and wider. Or it could spend $1.3 on a community grid, which reroutes "through" traffic around the city on Route 481 and allows local streets to carry traffic to downtown destinations.

In the United States, there's plenty digging going on for large tunnels to bring water to cities or sewer lines to take waste away, but there are few tunnels being built to handle highways, according to experts and websites that follow tunneling.

9 highway tunnels in the United States in the last decade

The Big Dig Boston

A view of Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, left, and Purchase Street, right, on Thursday, April 28, 2016 photo in Boston, where the formerly elevated Central Artery was rerouted to an underground tunnel in a project unofficially known as the Big Dig.

Probably the most well known tunnel project is The Central Artery/Tunnel Project known unofficially as the Big Dig. It was plagued by cost overruns, delays, leaks, design flaws, charges of substandard materials, criminal arrests and a death.

The original cost in 1981 dollars was estimated at $2.8 billion, or $6 billion in 2006 adjusted dollars. The project came in at $14.6 billion when it was completed in 2007 making it the most expensive highway project in the United States.



The project included two new bridges, a 3.5 mile- tunnel under the city, and an extended highway to Logan International Airport. The plan was to build those structures and rework surface streets to shorten commute times and make it easier to travel in and out of Boston. The Central Artery and Tunnel project handles about 536,000 vehicles each weekday.



Did The Big Dig do its job?



"Rush hour brings what radio reporters refer to as heavy volume. But the traffic moves, and for 1.5 miles through downtown Boston, it moves out of sight, underground. Above those famously expensive tunnel boxes is some of the most beautiful and valuable urban real estate anywhere in the nation, if not the world. Getting to and from Logan Airport has never been easier, whether picking up grandma or getting an executive to a startup in Fort Point or along Route 128." said Anthony Flint in a story in the Boston Globe in December 2015, nearly the 10th anniversary of the Big Dig.

The Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy Greenway, where the elevated highway used to be, now hosts parks, open space and amenities such as public art, food trucks, farmers' markets, a fountain, carousel, and the Harbor Islands visitor center.

Seattle's tunnel, the Alaska Viaduct Seattle SR99

Say the words "Seattle" and "tunnel," and someone will tell you the story about how the

for two years.



Seattle's SR 99 two-mile tunnel replaces an elevated highway that slices through that city. The entire project is estimated at $3.1 billion.

Big Bertha began chewing her way through the earth in July 2013. Six months later the machine's seal system broke down and it took two years to lift the machine, repair it on the surface and get it tunneling again.Bertha finally broke through to the other side of the city on April 4 this year. The highway is expected to open to traffic in 2019.



The Seattle tunnel won't have mid-town exits and neither do the tunnels NYDOT has looked at for Syracuse. In both cities drivers will need to get off ramps at either end of the tunnel to travel local streets to enter downtown.





Elizabeth River Tunnel project

Virginia finished one tunnel project last year and has two more on the drawing boards.



The Elizabeth River Tunnels Project includes a new tunnel, the rehabilitation of other two tunnels and highway projects in the South Hampton Roads region of the Virginia coast. The $2.1 billion project is designed to reduce congestion on surface streets and arterial roads between Portsmouth and Norfolk, Virginia.



The project is being administered by Elizabeth River Crossings (ERC) and Virginia Department of Transportation as part of a 58-year public-private partnership concession. Work began in 2012 and the new tunnel was completed in June 2016, months ahead of schedule.



New Hampton Roads Tunnel





This April 27, 2016 file photo shows commuters make their way along the west island of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel in Hampton, Va. A Virginia transportation board has chosen to expand the congestion-plagued Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel. The project includes adding a third tunnel and expanding from four lanes to six.

The existing 3.5 mile Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel is two, two-lane tunnels under Hampton Roads Harbor in Virginia. It has artificial islands and trestle bridges that carry the highway to the shore. The tunnels opened in 1957 and 1976. They carry more than 100,000 vehicles a day during peak summer traffic.

Virgina is seeking input from contractors to build a new tunnel and bridge to expand I-64 in Hampton Roads to six lanes as part of a $3.3 billion project. The work is expected to be a awarded in 2019 with completion in 2024.

Thimble Shoals tunnel

Proposed Thimble Shoals Tunnel.

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission last year awarded a $755 million contract to build a new 1-mile parallel tunnel at the Thimble Shoals Channel in Virginia Beach. The work is scheduled to begin this fall, and is expected to take five years. When complete, the new tunnel will carry two lanes of traffic southbound and the existing tunnel will carry two lanes of traffic northbound.

Port of Miami Tunnel

The $668.5 million Port of Miami Tunnel is 4,200 feet long and goes under Biscayne Bay in Miami connecting the MacArthur Causeway on Watson Island with the port on Dodge Island. Work began in 2010 and the tunnel opened in 2014.



The project provides direct access between the seaport and highways I-395 and I-95, creating another entry to Port Miami in addition to the Port Bridge.



The tunnel improves traffic flow in downtown Miami where an estimated 16,000 vehicles a day were using city streets to travel to and from the port.

Devil's Slide Tunnel

After nearly a 50 year hiatus, California completed two highway tunnel projects in 2013.



The Devil's Slide Tunnels, formally known as The Tom Lantos Tunnels, are two tunnels located within the coastal promontory of Devil's Slide near Pacifica, California.

State Route 1 in that area offered tight turns with breathtaking cliff top views of the ocean. The treacherous Devil's Slide stretch of the highway was routinely blocked by landslides.



The Devil's Slide tunnels, which opened in 2013, are the second and third longest road tunnels in California at 4,149 ft northbound, and 4,008 ft southbound. They were the first tunnels to open in the state since 1964.



Construction of the tunnels began in 2005 and took about two years longer than originally expected, in part because crews found unusual soil conditions that slowed work. The project has an estimated cost of $439 million.



Caldecott Tunnel fourth section



The fourth section of the Caldecott Tunnel also opened in 2013



The tunnel allows California State Route 24 to go through the Berkeley Hills between Oakland and Orinda. The first two sections of the tunnel were built in 1937, a third was built in 1964 and the fourth section was completed in 2013.



The fourth tunnel is 3,389 feet long, took three years to build and cost $417 million.



Irvine-Corona Tunnel was dropped

This is the tunnel that never happened.



In 2010, after spending $9 million on studies California dropped plans to build an $8.6 billion freeway and tunnel connecting Riverside and Orange counties in California and their main cities of Irvine and Corona.

The approximately 11.5-mile tunnel would have been built beneath the Santa Ana Mountains in the Cleveland National Forest to serve vehicles and rail traffic.



Environmentalists had worried the venting of vehicle exhaust from the tunnel would affect the forest.



Charley Hannagan reports on transportation, breaking news and the western suburbs. You may contact her at anytime: Email | Twitter | Facebook | 315-470-2161.