This is a great piece that covers a lot of ground about the project. The author included information on the background of the original highway, and a nice discussion of the political aspects that drove […]
California motorists can now avoid a dangerous and landslide-prone stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway, Devil’s Slide, through the tunnel bypass. This project has been a fascination of mine since the early days of GeoPrac. […]
The Devil’s Slide Tunnel Project was originally scheduled to open at the end of 2012, but it has been delayed slightly to an early 2013 opening. If you look at some recent photos, you can hardly tell that there is anything left to finish. I’ve been following this project since it started, since to me it represents the essence of geoengineering, with important roles played by geotechnical engineers, geological engineers, hydrogeologists, and of course geotechnical contractors and tunneling specialists. I thought it would be interesting to list a few of the posts I’ve written about the project over the years and present a bit of information I only recently learned. Click through for more. [Image: kxyoung on Flickr]
A bicyclist went around the barricades at the California Highway 1 Devil’s Slide Tunnel project after work hours and rode his bike through one of the tunnels, recording video as he went. I don’t advocate […]
The Devil’s Slide Tunnels that bypass a landslide prone stretch of California coast will not open until late 2012, a full year later than anticipated according to Caltrans. The tunnels broke through back in October, […]
The notorious landslide-prone stretch of California Highway 1 at Devil’s slide has only about one more year until traffic bypasses it completely thanks to the twin bore tunnels that have just completed excavation. They still […]
The “breakthrough” media event for CALTRANS’ Devil’s Slide Tunnel project was this past Friday. A large crowd of politicians, news crews and locals were on hand as a road-header broke through a shotcrete face in a ceremony to mark the completion of the excavation portion of the first of two tunnels. It will still be over a year until the tunnels are opened to traffic. The second tunnel is expected to breakthrough as early as this week. (Photo by SFGate.com)
Caltrans tunnel punch-through from Barry Parr on Vimeo.
The Video came from the Coastsider, the page also has comments from the videographer, Barry Parr, which offer a good perspective on the event.
Click on through for more links etc.
Today crews on the Devil’s Slide bypass tunnels will break through after more than 3 years of excavation work. The pair of 4,000-ft long tunnels will each convey Highway 1 past a dangerous and landslide-prone […]
These are some really fantastic photos of the Devil’s Slide tunnel construction. For those who aren’t familiar, the tunnels will be bypassing a particularly landslide and rockslide-prone portion of the California Coast that is currently […]
[Updated Thursday May 29, 2009 – 1:00 PM PDT] Added a photo of the AIS Kaiser S2 excavator (spider excavator), and added photos of the Devil’s Slide debris dump where they have put the landslide material removed and the material from the tunnel excavation. [/Update]
Grant Wilcox, Geology Branch Chief with CALTRANS Office of Geotechnical Design West gave a presentation on the Devil’s Slide repair along PCH Highway 1 at the Southwest Geotechnical Engineer’s Conference on May 12 in Phoenix. I’ve posted about the project here before. When I saw Mr. Wilcox, I knew he looked familiar but I couldn’t figure out why. At the beginning of his presentation he made light of his being on You-Tube…then it clicked! He gave a nice overview of the history of the failures, the geology, and the tunnel project. What follows are a few quick tidbits from his talk based on my notes. (Photo via Caltrans site).
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