How long is fort mchenry tunnel

The east ventilation building, which was built in a more industrial port area, is a conventional steel building with pre-cast concrete panels. Two innovations included the installation of high-intensity lighting at the tunnel's portals and the construction of antennas for AM and FM radio reception inside the tunnel.

However, this finishing work took its first and only fatality in when one worker was electrocuted and three others were injured in an accident at the tunnel's midpoint. When it opened, the Fort McHenry Tunnel was the widest underwater tunnel in the world, a title it still holds today. Almost immediately, approximately 70, vehicles per day AADT used the new tunnel. The opening of the tunnel, which completed I through Baltimore, meant that a long-delayed project to rebuild the Harbor Tunnel Thruway I could begin.

The Canton toll plaza was to be removed after Baltimore City had repaid its 10 percent share of project costs. However, the Maryland Transportation Authority MdTA , which owns and operates the tunnel, appealed successfully to keep the tolls. It was appealed amid fears of a traffic imbalance: a toll-free I would be overloaded while the somewhat less convenient I Francis Scott Key Bridge and I Harbor Tunnel - which originally were not financed with Interstate highway funds - would receive less traffic and therefore reduced revenue.

The tunnel provides the most direct route for I through traffic, though not always the fastest route particularly during weekday peak periods and weekend sporting events. The maximum speed limit through the tunnel and its approaches is 55 MPH. At the Fort McHenry Tunnel toll plaza, workers removed the four innermost tollbooths and replaced them with two 30 MPH "high speed" lanes one northbound and one southbound.

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Greater Baltimore. Construction started: Opened to traffic: Number of tubes: Number of traffic lanes: Length between portals: Operating headroom of tunnel: Roadway width: Maximum depth, mean high water to roadway: Length of each immersed tunnel section: Number of immersed tunnel sections: Structural steel used in construction: Concrete used in construction: Dredged material: Ceramic tiling area: Supply and exhaust fans: Cost of original structure:.

May 7, November 23, 4 tubes 8 lanes 7, feet 2, Passenger car cash toll Passenger car EZ-Pass toll:. For interstate travelers, the dread begins miles away as they steel themselves for the maddening Harbor Tunnel bottleneck that often forms miles outside of Baltimore.

But all that's about to change. Travelers on I who scarcely glimpse Baltimore's restored town houses, its sparkling Inner Harbor or the growing downtown skyline will soon see a new side of the city as they whisk through its gleaming new Fort McHenry Tunnel. Dozens of state and federal dignitaries are expected to be on hand for the opening ceremonies today to claim credit for the largest underwater road project in the history of the Interstate highway system, one that came in under budget and almost on time.

The newspaper article goes on to cite the details of the project and its importance to the I corridor. The first yards of each inbound portal simulates daylight with high intensity lighting and white pavement, eliminating the "dark hole" effect on older tunnels and providing enough transition for motorists' eyes to adjust from daylight to the lighting level inside the tunnel.

The photo at the top clearly shows the feature. The entire tunnel is monitored by 64 television monitors in a central control room that also has controls for air quality and traffic signals. Good project management indeed. The opening of the Fort McHenry Tunnel did indeed greatly relieve traffic on the Harbor Tunnel, and this Harbor Tunnel rehabilitation project did get constructed, and the result was a well-lighted modern-looking tunnel with modernized mechanical, ventilation and traffic control systems.

The name of the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel did not change, even though it was no longer the only harbor tunnel as its generic name implies in Baltimore after the Fort McHenry Tunnel opened about a mile away. The whole Harbor Tunnel Thruway was designated I a couple years later, the even-prefix 3-digit Interstate route designation being an appropriate number for this highway which is a parallel alternate to I in the Baltimore area.

Previously, the mile-long Harbor Tunnel Thruway did not have a route number, although it did have trailblazer "TO I" signs. These volumes are both well within the traffic engineering designs of each facility. In January , four-lane reconstruction was completed on the originally-two-lane 3.

In other words, with 12 Interstate lanes across the inner harbor and 4 Interstate lanes across the outer harbor, the Baltimore area will continue to have adequate cross-harbor highway capacity for well into the future. In April , the Authority unveiled its electronic-toll-collection system, a state-of-the-art method for collecting tolls that benefits motorists and the environment, for commuters who use the Baltimore-area crossings.

The E-ZPass system allows commuters the ease of paying their tolls electronically. MdTA Ft. McHenry Tunnel Fact Sheet. About the Maryland Transportation Authority : Excerpt blue text : Since , the Maryland Transportation Authority has been responsible for managing, operating and improving the State's toll facilities, as well as for financing new revenue-producing transportation projects.

The Authority's seven facilities - a turnpike, two tunnels and four bridges - help keep both private and commercial traffic moving in Maryland. All of our projects and services are funded through tolls paid by customers who use our facilities. The FHWA granted this funding request, and specified that the tunnel would become toll-free after the state share was paid off via the tolls.

In later years after the state share was refunded to FHWA, the state applied to have the toll collection authorization extended, because if I became toll-free, then the Harbor Tunnel Thruway I and the Francis Scott Key Bridge I would also have to become toll-free in order to avoid causing a traffic imbalance on the three Baltimore Harbor highway crossings.

Since the construction and improvements to the Harbor Tunnel Thruway and the Key Bridge have been funded with state-issued toll revenue bonds, with no highway federal-aid utilized, it was not feasible for the state to make those facilities toll-free, since a considerable amount of the bond debt still exists and remains to be retired over time.

It would be nice to have the toll plaza removed from I in Baltimore, since it causes traffic congestion during peak hours, but it looks like it is here to stay, although electronic toll collection through E-ZPass does help the traffic conditions somewhat, and the Maryland Transportation Authority MdTA is planning to build high-speed open road tolling whereby vehicles with E-ZPass could pass through the toll collection area at full highway speed on freeway-standard roadways.

Since MdTA utilizes "pooled toll financing" on its 7 highway toll facilities, whereby the toll revenues from all of them are pooled to properly fund the construction and operation of the whole system, it is highly unlikely that the Harbor Tunnel Thruway and Key Bridge tolls will ever be removed. The Interstate Division for Baltimore City IDBC was a joint city-state agency that existed to administer the planning, design, right-of-way acquisition, and construction of Interstate highways within the City of Baltimore, and IDBC ceased to exist after the Interstate highway construction was completed.

On I, there was to have been an 8-lane double-decked high-level bridge just north of Fort McHenry and passing over Baltimore Harbor, with one of its main piers on the fort property, and the bridge's vertical navigational clearance over the shipping channel would have been about feet, so that oceangoing ships could pass underneath.

Around , the Fort McHenry Tunnel concept was adopted due to aesthetic and historical concerns at the Fort McHenry national monument. Operationally, the bridge would have been superior, and it would have cost much less to build, but the bridge would have towered over Fort McHenry. The state originally wanted to build the tunnel with a rectangular reinforced concrete box design, but the Federal Highway Administration FHWA insisted on a steel tubular design, and after a six-month dispute over what design to utilize, the state decided in February to accept the steel tubular design.

The steel tunnel design with a fully-transverse ventilation system, approved by federal highway officials, was estimated to cost 1. Both designs would utilize the immersed-tube construction method whereby segments of the tunnel would be fabricated on land and then floated to the tunnel site and sunk in a dredged trench under the floor of the harbor. Click the above image for a detailed page Fort McHenry Tunnel - Project Plans with plan, profile and typical section views of the tunnel.

North is on the vertical axis pointing upward. In the most expensive Interstate highway project yet, contractors are preparing to lay a 5,ft. In , the Interstate Division for Baltimore City IDBC , a joint city-state agency, planned to build a bridge but ran into opposition from local residents who felt a bridge would obstruct the view of the historic fort.

Hellmann organized an environmental task force of federal, state and city agencies in order to streamline the permit process.

Task force members included the U. Environmental Protection Agency and the Corps of Engineers. IDBC decided at the start without consulting federal officials, that an environmental impact statement and a public hearing were required for the harbor dredging, a key element of the project.

Length of entire facility, including tunnel and approaches: Number of twin-tube tunnel sections: 21 ea. Including the tunnel and approach roadways, the facility is approximately The tunnel was formed out of twenty-one foot-long 94 m sections individually submerged into the harbor and secured with rocks and backfill; the first of these tunnel segments was sunk on April 11, In addition, vehicles in excess of 13 feet, 6 inches, in height, or 96 inches 8 feet in width; and all double trailers are prohibited from using the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel.

Vehicles carrying Class 1 explosives and radioactive materials require an escort at the Francis Scott Key Bridge.