You’ve been through it, I know. You’re stuck in a pre-tunnel traffic jam that is the result of nothing but the fact that the tunnel is there. You sit in the traffic for an hour and finally get through the tunnel at a snail’s pace and - nothing. No accidents, no breakdowns, nothing. Just a tunnel.
What is it about tunnels? People don’t even have to get into a tunnel and they start to panic, slowdown and jam up thousands of cars for no reason. I’ve heard claustrophobia blamed but it seems to me if you didn’t like being in the tunnel, you would speed through it, not slow down to breath the fumes.
I’ve had the opportunity to travel through Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel over the last 30 years and noticed no improvement in tunnel traffic - ever. Years ago an additional tunnel (Monitor Merrimac) was built to help alleviate the chronic tunnel traffic. Guess what? The new tunnel gets backed up too.
My biggest complaint about chronic tunnel traffic is that I don’t think traffic engineers can fix the problem. Countless studies have been made with no improvement. Little things like making the tunnel brighter or making it so at least one of the tunnel can be seen at all times are supposed to help but nothing ever does.
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I drive thru Eisenhouwer tunnel and johnson tunnel quite often and never seem to have that issue. In fact the real thing that irritates me is the speeders thru the tunnel. The speed limit is a bit lower than that on i70 as a whole. I find that it is very irritating to see those people speed and ride you tail in the tunnel this tunnel is rather long and if an accident happens inside it will block traffice for a very very long time as well as all the other dangers with tunnel accidents. If everyone goes the posted speed thru the tunnels traffic moves nicely and no accidents.
Mark on August 13th, 2007 at 1:31 pm | Link