The toll-free tunnel goes under the Houston Ship Channel, connecting the communities of Galena Park and Pasadena (the refinery town made famous in the 1980 movie “Urban Cowboy”.) Officials say during the week it carries up to 27,000 vehicles a day.
Built in 1950 at a cost of $7 million, the Washburn Tunnel is just under 3800 feet long, taking drivers 68 feet below the ship channel. Atop the tunnel’s entrance there’s a large midcentury structure containing high-speed blower fans that provide ventilation. Because of its unique trench design, the Washburn Tunnel was included on the National Register of Historic Places in 2008.
Also in 2008, all large vehicles were banned from the tunnel including 18-wheelers. But in September 2010, that didn’t stop a big rig driver from trying to enter. Gail Miller is with Harris County Precinct 2, the governmental entity that operates the tunnel, and she tells what happened next.
“We had an 18-wheeler, about 3:30 in the morning, drive by the guard shack. The guard was out, the flags were out, he drove right around then and headed into the tunnel. Well, he’s too big to get into the tunnel, and he hit the north portal wall, damaging the brick and the metal behind it.”
Once inside the tunnel, Miller says the truck collapsed and it took about seven hours to remove the wreckage. The driver wound up going to jail. Now two years later, crews are at work repairing the damage.
Miller says at the time of the accident, the damage wasn’t considered severe enough to close the tunnel to traffic. As for why it’s taken so long to do the repairs, Miller says they had to settle insurance claims, and because of the tunnel’s historic status, they had to find the proper materials to make the repairs to the tunnel’s entrance.
“Any changes to a historic building have to be run by the Texas Historical Commission, and they have to be matched in terms of brickwork.”
The tunnel will be closed to traffic on weekends through April 2 to make those repairs. So what does that mean for drivers? Traffic will be funneled onto several other ship channel crossings, including the East I-610 Loop, the Sam Houston Parkway toll bridge and the State Highway 146 Fred Hartman Bridge (which replaced another tunnel, the Baytown Tunnel, in 1995). Drivers also have the option of using the Lynchburg Ferry, which will have expanded hours during the Washburn Tunnel’s closure.
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source: Transportation Nation (Delaughter, 3/20)
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