CSX is planning to expand and lower the Virginia Avenue Rail Tunnel on Capitol Hill in order to prepare for more traffic resulting from expanding the Panama Canal (am I the only one reminded of the TV show "Connections"?). Now I figured they'd just work around the tunnel they have, but it seems they're actually going to build an "excavation tunnel" parallel to the existing one. They'll move the operations to that tunnel and then work on the existing tunnel. So the question is, what are they going to do with the excavation tunnel when they're done?
Is it possible for DDOT to railbank it? It's not so crazy. CSX wouldn't have to pay to fill it back in and they'd have a tunnel sitting there in case they ever needed it. The Howard Street tunnel fire a few years ago caused major disruption to CSXT freight traffic - and it only closed the tunnel for 4 days. They also get at least one element with which they could build goodwill with the neighborhood. Tommy Wells, after all, is the Councilmember for that area.
DDOT might be open to it too. One end of the tunnel is a few feet from the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. The other end is between Garfield Park and Canal Park where a trail is already being planned. Plus it would be super cool to have a 10 block long tunnel to bike or run through (lighting would be a must).
Update: At 0.7 miles it would be slightly longer than the San Sebastian Tunnel, the "world's longest bike commuter tunnel." That is either a source of concern ("It's too long") or pride ("We're #1"). It sounds like from the comments that what they're planning to do is excavate the tunnel and build a trench next to it. They'd run the train through the trench while they work on the tunnel. If this is true, it becomes a bit harder to convert as the bike tunnel would need to be built after the rail line moves back into the rail tunnel. Not only would there be money issues, but it would leave the gash open longer. I have no idea how much work would be needed to build such a tunnel - could it be prefabricated and assembled in days, or would it take months? Maybe Froggie will weigh in.
Here are some other long bike/ped tunnels (or trenches).
Minneapolis has a 5-mile below-grade bike path running through the middle of the city. You can only get off it on ramps spaced about every 1/2 mile, and the whole thing is invisible from street level. It gets 500 riders an hour at peak.
The Elbe tunnel gets 700,000 pedestrians and 63,000 cyclists a year to cross the 1400 foot distance. Not as long, but you have to take elevators on both ends to use it.
Or this trail in the UK that will connect two towns. The longer tunnel is 1.7 km long.
There's a rail trail tunnel in Idaho that's 1.4 miles long. In Pennsylvania there is an 11 mile section of the Pennsylvania Turnpike that was abandoned in 1968. It was sold to the Southern Allegheny Conservancy, to be converted into a recreational trail. It includes the Ray's Hill Tunnel (3,532 ft) and the Sideling Hill Tunnel (6,782 ft).
Interesting.
BTW, Connections was awesome - I never saw the original, but I loved its reincarnations Connections^2 and Connections^3, which aired on TLC in the 90s back when The LEARNING Channel actually had educational (i.e., non-reality programming)! ;-)
Posted by: CyclingFool | March 05, 2010 at 09:54 AM
I am less than thrilled by the idea of using this or any other long tunnel for a bike facility. Security would be a huge headache (probably sometimes quite literally). It would remove a major side benefit of using a bike for transportation: being able to look at the sky and the buildings, people and scenes you're passing (something you can't do when you're driving a car). Finally, the tunnel runs for a mile or so from 3rd and New Jersey SE, under the freeway, to 17th and M SE, on the Anacostia waterfront under the Sousa Bridge, with no intermediate entrances/exits, or daylight; just how many people are going to want to bike that? (Especially considering that G Street SE, for example, provides a nice, direct, lightly trafficked alternative which also serves intermediate destinations.) Whoever came up with this idea definitely has not thought things through (to be as diplomatic as I possibly can).
Posted by: davidj | March 08, 2010 at 06:26 PM
CSX's proposal is not to have a paraless tunnel during construction, but to have an open air temporary track running along the excavated tunnel. There is no permanent trackage to be used in the Rails to Trails or other program. The project will break the linkages between Capitol Hill and the Riverfront, disrupting natural bike routes between 3rd and at least 11th streets.
Posted by: Mike McEleney | March 08, 2010 at 07:31 PM
@davidj, I actually did think it through. This tunnel would actually be about 0.7 miles long not a mile long, btw.
First of all, Have you ever biked through a rail tunnel? It's actually pretty cool - There are, in fact, 3 rail tunnels you can bike through in the immediate DC area. There are tunnels in West Virginia that are a mile long. Biking through a mile long tunnel is amazing. Yes, you give up the chance to see the sky, etc...but it is an experience of it's own. Such a thing might become a local destination in and of itself (I can see runners using it in the summer to avoid the heat).
The people who would use the tunnel, besides people who would go to it for itself, are those who are not interested in going to an intermediate destination. There are those who would be interested in a direct route from Garfield Park to the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. One that allows them to avoid grade crossings. This is especially great for runners and walkers in that they don't have to lose their pace at every intersection.
I think people would use it, if it could be built.
Posted by: washcycle | March 08, 2010 at 08:55 PM
@davidj and others. For those who have a pre-conceived notion that tunnels are by default dangerous, I'd urge you to have a read of this study: http://www.americantrails.org/resources/railtrails/Tunnels.html
Posted by: GEH | April 08, 2010 at 11:43 PM