HAMPTON ROADS, Va. (WAVY) — Sixty years ago Monday, the engineering marvel that is the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel opened to commuters.
Before the bridge, the only way to get across the water was by ferry. It’s something Lucius Kellam III remembers well. His father, Lucius J. Kellam Jr., owned a small oil and propane business on the Eastern Shore. He was instrumental in the creation of the bridge.
“For whatever reason he had this vision that they could build a bridge across the Chesapeake Bay,” Kellam said.
It’s considered an engineering wonder of the modern world — 17.6 miles from shore to shore consisting mostly of low trestle bridges carrying a two-lane highway broken up by tunnels in-between.
“As a family we really didn’t — I guess my mother did — we didn’t really appreciate just how mammoth it is,” Kellam said. “He was the one that dealt with the traffic engineers, the construction engineers the bonds people, the bankers.”
He was so instrumental that the bridge was dedicated in his honor in 1987, 12 years before he died. You may see a sign noting his contributions when you cross noting its official name as the Lucius J. Kellam Jr. Bridge Tunnel.
“He really got a chance to appreciate it and enjoy the proofs of what he did,” said Kellam.
Construction started in 1958, and 42 months later on April 15, 1964 the bridge was opened to traffic. Kellam’s dreams for the creation of the bridge, though, started many years prior. He formed the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission and served as chairman for decades.
Then in 1954, the General Assembly gave him permission to proceed, but it wasn’t without hurdles. The Navy didn’t really want it at first, as the idea was in the works during the Cold War.
“They said that if the Russians come and bomb that bridge, part of the Navy is going to be stuck, as a matter of fact, just like Baltimore is now,” Kellam said.
The bridge was built without any local, state or federal money and it was paid for through bonds.
“It was a $200 million bond issuance at the time — that was the largest in the history of the Commonwealth,” said Thomas Anderson, Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel deputy executive director of finance and operations. “Today, $200 million still seems like an awful lot of money, but if you were to equate that into 2024 terms, that would be over $2 billion.”
Anderson said previous tunnels were built using a methodology known as immersed tube tunnel construction, but now they’re able to use a tunnel boring machine instead.
“That technology didn’t exist in today’s form back then to allow for boring and soft ground conditions,” Anderson said, “but now we’re able to utilize it, and now, the HRBT is able to utilize it and it’s going to be a more cost-effective way to build the tunnels. But it also is less impactful on marine traffic and end users of the Port of Hampton Roads.”
That’s what they’re using to build the Parallel Thimble Shoal Project. It will go from the southernmost island under Thimble Shoal Channel to the second island. When complete, the new tunnel will carry the southbound lanes and the existing tunnel will carry northbound.
This will remove a portion of the tunnel where drivers face head-on traffic and could help with delays during peak summer tourism season.
“Those won’t be completely cured by having a new parallel tunnel with simple show channel,” Anderson said, “because we’ll still have the existing singular tunnel at Chesapeake Tunnel, but it will remove a lot of the of the challenges that you have from having a choke point there.”
Anderson said not only did it create a lifeline to and from the Eastern Shore back then, but said it also continues to be a lifeline.
“Probably took more like two hours rather than the 20 minutes that it does today,” Anderson said, “and certainly the system was at its capacity with the volume of traffic,” said Anderson. “They had, you know, 750,000 back then, but today it’s 4.3 million.”
Tunneling through and paving the way for years to come, and remembering the man behind it all.
“Even now, I still continue to appreciate what a mammoth undertaking this was,” Anderson said, “but to him he was just doing it, you know.”
If you’d like to learn more about the new Tunnel Project, click here.