DOT approves loan for Miami port tunnel
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood looks for a newly approved $341 million loan to help take cargo trucks and cruise ship buses out of congested downtown Miami streets and put them into a long-planned tunnel to the Port of Miami.
"This tunnel will create a vital transportation link that will improve safety and reduce traffic congestion in the Miami area," LaHood said in announcing the DOT loan to a group of private companies operating as The Miami Access Tunnel. "It will also save money for millions of drivers because they will be spending less time on congested roads," he said.
The tunnel will serve as a direct connector under Biscayne Bay to and from the Port of Miami, linking it to the widened MacArthur Causeway (State Road A1A) and to Interstate 395.
The entire tunnel project will be 3.6 miles in length with two lanes in each direction, and is expected to cost about $1 billion. Miami has the largest container port in Florida and ninth-largest in the United States.
Now, said the Miami Herald, trucks and cruise buses bound for the port come off the thoroughfares and clog city streets without a direct link to the dock area. The city of Miami this month sent a $50 million letter of credit to a French consortium hired to build the tunnel, so it can now order a tunnel boring machine to be built for the project.
The Herald said getting the machine can take up to a year, and the entire project can take four to five years. That would mean the tunnel could open by 2015, it said.
"This tunnel will create a vital transportation link that will improve safety and reduce traffic congestion in the Miami area," LaHood said in announcing the DOT loan to a group of private companies operating as The Miami Access Tunnel. "It will also save money for millions of drivers because they will be spending less time on congested roads," he said.
The tunnel will serve as a direct connector under Biscayne Bay to and from the Port of Miami, linking it to the widened MacArthur Causeway (State Road A1A) and to Interstate 395.
The entire tunnel project will be 3.6 miles in length with two lanes in each direction, and is expected to cost about $1 billion. Miami has the largest container port in Florida and ninth-largest in the United States.
Now, said the Miami Herald, trucks and cruise buses bound for the port come off the thoroughfares and clog city streets without a direct link to the dock area. The city of Miami this month sent a $50 million letter of credit to a French consortium hired to build the tunnel, so it can now order a tunnel boring machine to be built for the project.
The Herald said getting the machine can take up to a year, and the entire project can take four to five years. That would mean the tunnel could open by 2015, it said.