The History of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel

The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel (MMMBT) is one the three major highway bridge-tunnel facilities in Virginia. A bridge-tunnel is a facility where a bridge transitions into a man-made portal island. A bridge tunnel is used in Virginia because of the wide of water located there, which makes an all tunnel route extremely expensive. The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel is one of the largest, unknown water-crossing facilities in the world.

The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel is named after the two ironclad warships, which engaged in the Battle of Hampton Roads that took place in 1862, during the Civil War. This battle was fought between the USS Monitor and the CSS Virginia. The later ship was rebuilt from the wreck of the USS Merrimack. The USS Merrimack was commissioned by the Confederacy as CSS Virginia. But even after she was rebuilt, the Union wanted to continue to call her by her original name, Merrimack. Because the Union won the Civil War, US history records the Union version of the name wherever it is mistaken with the Confederate name. During a later time in history, the name was shortened, by dropping the "k" which made it, "The Battle of the Monitor and the Merrimac." The community in Montgomery County, near the area where the iron for the Confederate ironclad was forged is now known as Merrimac, Virginia. This is how the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel got its name (Monitor).

The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel is a four lane facility made up of bridges, man-made islands, trestles, and tunnels under a portion of the Hampton Roads harbor. It is 4.6 miles in length and is located in South Hampton Roads, Virginia where the James, Nansemond, and Elizabeth Rivers combine. The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel is a part of the Hampton Roads Beltway and connects the cities of Newport News, located on the Virginia Peninsula and Suffolk, located in South Hampton Roads.

Hampton Roads makes "V" shape on the Northbound side of the Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel. Newport News Marine Terminal and Shipyards are located on the left side of the "V" shaped road and the Norfolk Naval Base is located on the other side. The tunnel is designed to handle speeds up to 60 mph. It is 4,800 feet in length and was built using the sunken tube method. It contains 15 prefabricated segments, placed by lay-barges and connected in a trench dredged in the bottom of the harbor and covered with gravel. The traffic lanes in the tunnel contain ledges on both sides and have a vertical clearance from the roadway to the ceiling. The tunnel was designed and built deep enough to allow future changes of the current shipping channel up to 1,000 feet wide and 55 feet deep below the average low tide water level (Kozel).

The South Trestle is made of parallel bridges, which has two 12 feet wide lanes, an emergency shoulder on the left and right sides of the lanes. Most of the trestles are leveled with the roadways. There is a vertical navigational opening in the trestle that is used by a small boat channel. The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel contains about 408,000 tons of concrete, 21,800 tons of steel, and 3 million tiles (Kozel).

The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel was completed in 1992. Its completion provided a secondary bridge-tunnel crossing of the Hampton Roads harbor. The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel opened April 30, 1992. The tunnel is the newest of the four tunnels operated by the Virginia Department of Transportation. The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel took seven years to construct and cost 400 million dollars. The cost of fabricating the tunnel and lowering it into place