Virginia's Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel Commission is developing a design-build procurement for a new tunnel to parallel one of two existing subsurface structures along the 23-mile toll crossing between Virginia Beach and the Delmarva Peninsula. The move follows the agency's late-April decision not to pursue an unsolicited public-private proposal from industry firms.
The project, to be funded by revenue bonds and a hoped-for TIFIA loan, would add a new one-mile tunnel at Thimble Shoals Channel, about 3.5 miles offshore.