Deep inside Devil’s Slide Tunnel

October 26, 2009, 03:30 AM By Bill Silverfarb

Bill Silverfarb/Daily Journal Work on the Devil’s Slide Tunnel is about 65 percent complete. The $1.5 billion bypass is set to open sometime in 2011.

Deep inside Devil’s Slide Tunnel is a dark, muddy place where the air is thin and the noise sometimes deafening. Crews have bored more than 2,800 feet into San Pedro Mountain to ultimately link Pacifica to the midcoast with four lanes of traffic in two tunnels.

It is a public works project that will reach beyond $1.5 billion in costs and be named after former U.S. Rep. Tom Lantos, the San Mateo Democrat who secured $750 million in federal funds for the bypass. Lantos had worked for three decades to bring the project to light and lived long enough to dedicate the two tunnels before he died in early 2008 at the age of 80.

The workers inside the tunnels and the Caltrans’ engineers holed up in an office at a Linda Mar parking lot hold Lantos in the highest regard, for it is his name that will live on forever after their work is done. The project is about 65 percent completed now.
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