The Miami Herald reported this week that the PortMiami Tunnel will “remain closed for another month or more.”
PortMiami’s new billion-dollar tunnel, already a month past its promised opening date, won’t start carrying vehicles under Biscayne Bay for at least another four to six weeks, officials said Wednesday.
Investigators still haven’t been able to figure out the source of a mysterious and heavy vibration that knocked out two of the 44 fans — which control the tunnel’s ventilation — shortly after they were installed.
Contractors Bouygues Civil Works Florida (BCWF) began construction on May 24, 2010, and the tunnel boring machine launched from Watson Island to begin mining the eastbound tunnel on November 11, 2011. President Obama visited the construction site in March 2013 and mining of the westbound tunnel was completed on May 6, 2013.
The tunnel, which was scheduled to open on May 19, won’t be ready until “mid- to late July, unfortunately,” Gus Pego, senior Florida Department of Transportation official in Miami-Dade County, told the Miami Herald Wednesday.