World's largest tunneling machine heading to Seattle
SEATTLE (AP) - The world's largest-diameter tunnel boring machine is being loaded in 41 pieces onto a ship in Japan for a trip to Seattle.
The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce reports the $80 million machine named Bertha was built at a factory in Osaka and is expected to arrive by the end of the month.
Bertha will be reassembled in a pit to tunnel a new Highway 99 route under downtown Seattle to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
The tunnel will have a diameter of nearly 58 feet and is set to start boring this summer. The tunnel is scheduled to open in late 2015.
The tunnel borer was named Bertha in honor of Bertha Knight Landes, who was elected mayor of Seattle in 1926. The name was submitted by both a second-grade student at Lincoln Elementary School in Hoquiam and a fifth-grade class at Poulsbo Elementary School.
The Seattle Daily Journal of Commerce reports the $80 million machine named Bertha was built at a factory in Osaka and is expected to arrive by the end of the month.
Bertha will be reassembled in a pit to tunnel a new Highway 99 route under downtown Seattle to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct.
The tunnel will have a diameter of nearly 58 feet and is set to start boring this summer. The tunnel is scheduled to open in late 2015.
The tunnel borer was named Bertha in honor of Bertha Knight Landes, who was elected mayor of Seattle in 1926. The name was submitted by both a second-grade student at Lincoln Elementary School in Hoquiam and a fifth-grade class at Poulsbo Elementary School.
maybe it will be used to dig a hole big enough to put Obama voters in???
Good one Seattle. Â We here in New Zealand are waiting for a 47 foot TBM made in China by the Germans. Â The machine is the 10th biggest in the world and should be here in July. Â Do you want to have a race?
Wow could somebody could use that to make a tunnel under the Columbia river? Shazam you are so smart I never would have thought of that!
Holy smokes! I want to read the manual that comes with it. Assembles in 30 minutes according to the sales literature?
So, I guess this proves that the United States doesn't have the technology or brains to build something like this. Â I hope it does better job than it did in Portland. Â Their big dig project cost a lot of bucks and didn't work anywhere close to what they said it would. Â That's "So Portland".
@Shadow Be glad the CRC project doesn't require one.
If it was boring a tunnel in Portland no doubt someone would try to find a huge gerbil to put in it.
Strange, it doesn't look like one of those worms in "Dune"!
Another "Big Dig" boondoggle?
Ok Portland/Vancouver folks, if Seattle can pull this off, lets get with the program. This is the solution the Columbia river crossing should be using. Bury the damn freeway. nobody wants to look at it.  And for real inspiration make it a reversible expressway, similar to the one in Seattle.  Once we pull that off we have the solution to the bottle neck of the west hills.
On another note, separate the light rail from the CRC and the Washington voters will pass it in a heart beat, will also do away with the need for a toll.
Run the light rail thru the river!
@oodathunked Under the river maybe more helpful, but not one person who commutes from North of the river wants the light rail. Turning a 20 minute C-tran commute into a 90 minute lightrail commute is not a step into the 21st century.
Their gonna drill a hole in Seattle? COOL!!!
It's either gonna be a sewer, or they will drill to China so that products can arrive quicker and without union help in unloading container ships.
That's hot
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@Dr. Rawdog My first thought was the penguins from the movie "Madagascar"
Alaskan Way ViaductÂ
OK. I give up. Why a duck? Why a no chicken?
Is this why there isn't enough money for the CRC?
@bOB if it is, the. I have no problem with it. The Alaskan Way Viaduct has been shown to be structurally unsound and in risk of total collapse. It should have been replaced 20 years ago.
@Ramsesthegreat @bOB You saying the non functional city of Seattle is more functional than Portland!!!!!!