re: Why Not Tunnels?

Digging tunnels in Baton Rouge's soil would be an hilarious undertaking

A lot of comments about how tunnels are terrible, or “I hate tunnels.” But I am trying to figure out how they are different from a traffic standpoint than a bridge. A friend of mine thinks people just slow down when driving through.

In theory, I think you can have the same number of lanes as a bridge and you have the same issue of it being a bottleneck in a sense that you can’t escape the traffic of an accident once you are on it (or in it).

Maybe the GWT gives people around here a bad taste in their mouth if they’ve run into traffic issues in it? But it seems to me that the issue there is that it’s one of the only direct ways through the bay, and as many people have said they are bidding out a bridge to help spread the traffic like we are considering doing here. I am curious why they are going bridge instead of another tunnel too, but I couldn’t find any info on that either.

Pretty damn different, but that's not saying its easy in Nola either.

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What if you don't shift up until 11k rpm?

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2 weeks ago my pup and I were driving through at 9 pm headed for Destin and ol’ baw with duel exhaust in his sweet ‘02 SilverAdo was rapping his pipes across the walls. My dog went crazy. In that moment, I sympathized for all the road rage aggressors out there.

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If you think it’s a shithole, you might be retarded.

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I concur, I also find that this particular individual might be of the "challenged" type.

635-Exp could be technically a tunnel. It is below grade

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I only know of two. Belle Chasse and Harvey... where is the other?

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Houma under the ICWW.
DOTD Link about TUnnel closure

probably the whole water thing in Louisiana.

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Boston's Big Dig fiasco is a perfect example of why not. The tunnels are nice now, but that was an expensive clusterfrick.

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Yea, but Teddy Kennedy, Barnie Frank and a bunch of other Mass. politicians got re-elected many times because of their support for that project.

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An above ground tunnel may work though...

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What exactly did you have in mind? If a tunnel wouldn't work (although I'm not sure I've read convincing support that it wouldn't yet), I'm all for thinking about creative alternatives to a $1.2M (and sure to be climbing) price tag for a new bridge.

One of the problems I see with anything other than a bridge, though, is that Act 488 this year provides pretty narrow language. It basically directs a new Capital Area Roads and Bridge District to discuss and come up with a location and funding solution for a bridge only. Doesn't seem to really give any wiggle room regarding the end product. Of course that could always be amended next year if there was a viable alternative.