Saturday, October 2, 2010

Devil's Slide project sees daylight




A major achievement was reached in the Devil's Slide tunnel project and after three years of digging through solid rock, workers punched through on Friday. 

It basically completes the excavation work on the first of two tunnels, which will steer traffic away from Devil's Slide between Pacifica and Half Moon Bay.

Chunks of sprayed concrete fell away from the north portal as an Austrian tunneling machine chewed through from the other side.

Crews have been working for three years, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, at a rate of about 10 feet a day to reach this point. The people of San Mateo County came to watch the fulfillment of a decades-long battle.

"I didn't know that this was going to happen when we started fighting the original plans for a bypass for Devil's Slide in 1972," says community tunnel advocate Lennie Roberts.

Highway 1 at Devil's Slide has never been a reliable route along the coast, closing routinely because of landslides and rockslides.

Coastal economies and families suffered with the tunnel, Pacifica will no longer have to be a cul-de-sac where cars turn around once a year in bad weather.

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Posted by Steve Sinai

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