All the construction happened while I was living in San Francisco. On a trip home in 1994 my mom couldn’t wait to show me, and all but demanded we take a drive downtown. At the time I wasn’t impressed; after all, it seemed like the tunnel through Yerba Buena island for I80/Bay Bridge was longer. Knowing now what went into the construction definitely impresses me for its sheer engineering prowess.
I’ve also had the pleasure of visiting the control center to replace some PCs while I was working for ADOT. I had no idea how complicated the entire system was, so I definitely came away with a newfound appreciation for what went into it.
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Fascinating —-
I love that Phionex had the forethought not to follow the crowd and not design a freeway that could be ugly and divide/slicing neighborhoods.
Too bad the bus thing was not revisited in years past. I believe that the US has learned that automobile traffic is not the be all, end all. I have always believed that we should have incorporated different modes of transportation, besides cars, into our urban design.
The tunnel design reminds me of the Dallas North Tollway back in the 90s, when they redesigned/upgraded the tollway and moved a large portion of it from above ground to underground. They used the same burrowing device to cut through the earth as they did in the video.
Thanks for sharing.