Baytown Tunnel

The Baytown Tunnel or Baytown-La Porte Tunnel was a two-lane underwater motor-vehicle tunnel connecting Baytown and La Porte, two suburbs of Houston, Texas. Completed in 1953,cite news
first =
last = Austin Bureau Staff
coauthors =
title = New bridge to replace tunnel at Baytown to cost $97 million
publisher = The Houston Chronicle
page = 19A
date = December 11, 1986 ] it traveled northeast-southwest underneath the Houston Ship Channel and had a length of convert|4110|ft|m.cite web
url = http://www.texasfreeway.com/Houston/historic/photos/houston_historic_photos.shtml
title = Baytown Tunnel, SH 146, and the Fred Hartman Bridge
accessdate = 2008-04-25
author = TexasFreeway.com] It was closed to vehicular traffic in 1995 with the opening of the Fred Hartman Bridge, and subsequently demolished beginning in 1997 in order for the Army Corps of Engineers to deepen the channel in 1998.cite news
first = Dan | last = Feldstein | coauthors =
title = Baytown Tunnel will become great carrier reef
publisher=Houston Chronicle | page=13A | date=February 3, 1997]

The Fred Hartman Bridge had been designed to replace the Baytown Tunnel (of depth clearance convert|40|ft|1), which had to be removed when the Houston Ship Channel was deepened to convert|45|ft|1, with a minimum convert|530|ft|1 bottom width, to accommodate larger ships. The last section of the Baytown Tunnel was removed September 14 1999 from the Houston Ship Channel, with removal of the tunnel being the responsibility of the Texas Department of Transportation. "Welcome to the Houston-Galveston Navigation Channel Project Online Resource Center" (description), USACE, December 2005, webpage: [http://www.swg.usace.army.mil/items/hgnc/ USACE-HGNC] .]

History

Conceived and constructed as a means to improve traffic circulation, the tunnel opened in September 1953 as a replacement facility for the now-defunct Morgans Point Ferry at a final cost of $10 million. The land where the tunnel entered and exited was leased from Exxon by the state for an annual fee of $1.

The tunnel consisted of prefabricated sections that were sunk into place on the floor of the channel. The completed facility had a diameter of convert|36|ft|m complete with a convert|1|in|mm steel shell with convert|2|ft|m of concrete lining. The actual roadbed inside was flat with a ventilation shaft running beneath its surface.

It served as a connection between State Highway 146 and State Highway 225 on the south to State Highway 146 and Spur 201 to the north. By the 1970s the tunnel had exceeded its capacity of 25,000 vehicles a daycite news
first = Cindy
last = Horswell
coauthors =
title = Dedicating history, Baytown, La Porte like the view: The ribbon's cut on giant bridge
publisher = The Houston Chronicle
page = 25A
date = September 28, 1995 ] and in 1986 the Texas Department of Highways and Public Transportation awarded a contract for its replacement with an eight lane cable stayed bridge. With the closure of the tunnel occurring in 1995, a clause in the original tunnel permit issued by the corps called for the Department of Transportation to remove the facility if it became unused or abandoned.

By 1997 a proposal was made to dismantle the unused facility in convert|350|ft|m long sections, float them down the channel and sink each section in convert|100|ft|m of water at the Freeport Liberty Ship Reef in creating an artificial reef for marine wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico.cite news
first = Dan
last = Feldstein
coauthors = Bill Dawson
title = Baytown Tunnel 's reef plan sunk: Agency's acceptance of bid to demolish structure stirs anger
publisher = The Houston Chronicle
page = 37
date = September 7, 1997 ] This plan was scrapped due to both high costs in addition to the process resulting in over 50 closures of the channel to complete. The tunnel was removed by 1998 and its former structure would be salvaged as paving aggregate.

References

External links

* [http://www.texasfreeway.com/Houston/historic/photos/houston_historic_photos.shtml Baytown Tunnel, SH 146, and the Fred Hartman Bridge on TexasFreeways.com] for historical photos of the tunnel

Crossings navbox
structure = Crossings
place = Houston Ship Channel
bridge = Baytown Tunnel
(1953-1998)
bridge signs =
upstream = Fred Hartman Bridge
upstream signs =
downstream = Galveston Bay
downstream signs =