Travel: Bridge of Size

Paul Bunyan, who used a pine tree for a comb and once hitched his blue ox, Babe, to the foot of a river and hauled it into an adjoining prairie, would have been proud to claim credit for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

Chesapeake Bay is one of the world’s great waterways. In effect, it is one huge harbor. Within its sheltered waters, Baltimore grew into a major port, and the U.S. Navy as early as 1917 picked Norfolk as its chief East Coast base. But its mouth, from Cape Charles on the north to Cape Henry on the south, is 13 miles across, and until a few years ago it did not occur to anyone that it could be bridged. Getting from one side to the other meant a H-hour ferry ride or a roundabout inland route of some 100 miles.

This did not seem to matter so much until 1953, when the Pennsylvania Railroad decided to abandon its freight and commuter ferry across the bay as too expensive and too slow. The whole Delmarva Peninsula took fright. So did theVirginia legislature, which appointed a committee to study the problem. Norfolk, which was in the midst of an effort to transform itself into something better than a sleazy shore-leave resort for 70,000 sailors, gave the project enthusiastic support. It took time. But by 1960, the bridge commission, headed by Eastern Shore Businessman Lucius Kellam, had floated a $200 million bond issue, and construction began.

A Safe Boast. Where the water is shallow, the engineers built some twelve miles of trestle. Over two minor channels they flung bridges. But the Navy would not accept bridges over the major ship channels, on the reasonable military grounds that they might be bombed in case of war and block the channels. To meet this objection the authority came up with a unique solution. They would build tunnels instead. But tunnels have to start from dry land. So the authority built four islands on either side of the major channels.

When the bridge-tunnel opened last week, its creators could safely boast that it was a wonder of the world. Its 17.6 miles made it the longest bridge-tunnel in the world, and, considering the time it saved, the $4 charge for car and driver seemed reasonable.

Residents of Virginia’s Eastern Shore had mixed feelings. For Kellam and the development-minded, it promised new vitality and customers. But many mourned the loss of the Peninsula’s relative isolation, which has made it a cherished corner of quiet. One gloomily predicted that the whole center of the peninsula was doomed to turn into a “one-street city, 70 miles long, a filling station, restaurant, antique shop and real estate office on every block.”

New Hub. For Norfolk, the bridge-tunnel is only a spectacular addition to its redevelopment program, which will be complete in another five years. Already the results are impressive. More than 181 acres of slums, amounting to roughly 85% of Norfolk’s whole downtown area, have been knocked down and replaced with some $42 million worth of new buildings. Last week plans for a $100 million medical center were announced. A grassed and tree-lined pedestrian mall has replaced Main Street. The world’s largest coal-loading dock has been built by the Norfolk and Western Railroad, and savings and loan assets have quadrupled in the past ten years. Population has doubled since the war. And with the bridge, the city will finally be converted from a port stuck out at the far end of nowhere (few driving the New York-Miami trail attempted the extra 79 miles for Norfolk) into a communications hub.

With 2,500,000 vehicles using the new bridge-tunnel every year, booming Norfolk sees only progress ahead. “The sheer beauty,” crooned the local Virginian-Pilot, “is a shining demonstration of the theme that form follows function, undulating up and down as with the waves of the bay it traverses.”