The Virginia Department of Transportation has revised its schedule for the $3.9 billion Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) expansion, pushing the expected substantial completion date back 18 months, to February 2027.
Begun in November 2020, the project to increase the capacity of the key crossing under the main channel of one of the nation’s busiest ports has experienced “unforeseen cost and schedule impacts,” according to a VDOT statement. The project calls for augmenting the existing 7,500-foot-long submerged steel tunnels that carry Interstate 64 traffic with two new 45-foot diameter tunnels. tubes that will double the number of lanes from four to eight. The ten-mile project corridor connecting the cities of Hampton and Norfolk also includes 14,000 feet of new sea bridges, the replacement of more than two dozen existing bridge structures and lane additions.
On March 28, the agency announced that it had revised its comprehensive agreement with the design and construction team of Hampton Roads Connector Partners (HRCP), a consortium that includes Dragados USA, VINCI Construction Grand Projets, Flatiron Constructors and Dodin Champion Bernard.
VDOT says resetting the milestone goals “will provide construction schedule certainty, improve contractor schedule accountability and reduce the potential for litigation,” while preserving the original budget. The new schedule includes a $90 million incentive for HRCP to achieve early completion by the end of September 2026. The project team will also be eligible to receive additional compensation for the increased cost of certain materials associated with construction of the tunnel VDOT will receive a credit if the final cost falls below the bid cost.
In addition to being VDOT’s largest freeway construction project, the effort also features the agency’s largest continuous concrete pour.
Over 30 hours over the weekend of November 17-19, 2023, the pouring of more than 5,400 cubic meters of concrete created the base slab for a cell in the receiving shaft of the North Island. There, TBM “Mary” will soon complete a journey started from the HRBT’s existing South Island in April 2023 to create the first of two new tubes. The machine will then be repositioned for a return trip to the South Island to drill the second tunnel.
According to Dewberry, who is part of the project team’s quality assurance team, approximately 180 cubic meters of concrete were poured per hour, with 33 concrete trucks completing several round trips and back from the concrete batch plant to the site. Three concrete pump trucks also took part in the pouring. Field tests included measurement of concrete temperature, slump and the amount of air present in the mix. Concrete test cylinders were also prepared for laboratory tests to verify that the concrete reaches the required strength.
