FHA- National Park Service- Cumberland Gap Tunnel

The Cumberland Gap Tunnel opened to highway traffic on October 18, 1996. The tunnels are located in the Cumberland Mountains of the Appalachian Range, where the states of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia converge. Each tube is 32 feet wide and 16.5 feet high and carries two lanes of traffic. Construction was done by a Joint Venture S.A. Healy / Lodigiana USA LTD: A Chicago, IL-based contractor. The construction of the tunnel was complicated by the discovery of underground streams, caves, limestone formations, and clay infillings. BHATE provided progressive geologic mapping of the tunnel excavation and geotechnical instrumentation during construction to monitor any ground movements during excavation. BHATE also provided all field QC inspections for the contractor and materials testing services with a certified on-site laboratory facility including reinforcing steel and shotcrete.