There’s been an ongoing debate over whether a tunnel or a bridge would work best at the New River Crossing in Fort Lauderdale.
On Thursday, NBC6 got a behind the scenes look at the Miami Tunnel to see what worked during that major project at Port Miami.
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Construction on the Miami Tunnel was completed over 10 years ago after it was built by Meridian Infrastructure in a public private partnership with the federal government, Miami-Dade County, the City of Miami and the Florida Department of Transportation.
“We were able to deliver a tunnel on time, under budget, and that takes 80% of the trucks out of downtown,” said Christopher Hodgkins, Chairman of the Miami Tunnel.
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Hodgkins believes the City of Fort Lauderdale could do something similar at the New River Crossing.
“It definitely can be done,” said Hodgkins.
Recently Hodgkins personally invited Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis and Broward County Commissioner Lamar Fisher for a tour to show the success of the Miami Tunnel.
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“A few weeks ago we went to Miami. Why? Because it’s close by and has the same underground topography and we can talk to them to tell us about the cost, the duration, and the efficacy,” said Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis.
Currently, trains cross a drawbridge that was built in the 1970’s at the New River Crossing. As Brightline has been using the tracks more frequently, it can cause delays for boat traffic on the river. The marine industry is a major part of Fort Lauderdale’s economic development.
As part of the Premium Mobility Plan, Broward plans to expand their own commuter rail line on those tracks too.
Recently county commissioners voted to move forward with looking into a more affordable high-rise bridge option, but Mayor Trantalis is holding out hope for a tunnel as he believes it would preserve the character of Downtown Fort Lauderdale.
“We realize that it can be done and we realize it probably would cost less than a bridge, without interrupting a neighborhood,” said Mayor Trantalis.
A joint study by the Whitehouse Group which was paid for by the city and the county looked into four options: a 21-foot bascule bridge which can open and close up and down, a 55-foot bascule bridge, a 80-foot fixed bridge or a tunnel.
The projected costs to build a tunnel were around $3 billion, whereas the least expensive bridge option was estimated to cost $303 million.
Mayor Trantalis detailed how new estimates from city consultants BDO, are less costly in the range of $888 million dollars.
“We’ve come up with a way to show that the county will pay no more towards a tunnel than they would a bridge because of federal grants and state funding. It would all come together in such a way that it really wouldn’t cost the tax payers any more than a bridge and in fact it would last longer than a bridge and be more cost effective,” said Trantalis.
“This is a smaller tunnel with a single bore, so I think it can be done certainly under $3 billion dollars, but I think it’s up to us to look at the viability and the feasibility of getting that done and that’s what we’re doing right now,” said Hodgkins.
Some critics of the tunnel expressed concerns about building a tunnel at sea level, especially with flooding and heavy rain experienced in the area. Crews at the Miami Tunnel gave us an inside look at how they’ve implemented flood gates.
“Here we have 55 ton metal flood gates that come down when the coast guard declares code ‘Yankee.’ So when those flood gates come down, we have a rubber seal gasket at the bottom of the lip that seals that tunnel water tight to prevent any water from coming into the tunnel,” said Hodgkins.
The Florida East Coast Railway will have the final say for the New River Crossing as either option would be on their tracks.
Broward County and the City of Fort Lauderdale are now in the study phase. Mayor Trantalis said they’ll meet again in a few months to see where they go from here.
