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Light at the end of the new Tyne Tunnel
ANYONE who lives or works in Jarrow will tell you how big a headache the roadworks at the Tyne Tunnel roundabout have been for more than a year now.
Fences, road cones, cranes, mud, dumper trucks and traffic jams have become daily hazards.
But as the last section of the new Tyne Tunnel is lowered into place today, the obstacles that have become an all-too-common hazard around Jarrow for the past 15 months are a step closer to being removed.
At ground level, the Tyne Tunnel 2 (TT2) project all seems a bit of a chaotic mess, but there is a method to all this madness.
One year from now, it will hopefully all be over, and South Tyneside will finally have the transport infrastructure it's long deserved.
Built at a cost of 260m, the new tunnel was made to take the pressure off the existing Tyne Tunnel, which, because it only has a single carriageway, is unable to cope with the 38,000 vehicles passing through it daily.
As well as the new tunnel, the whole transport network around it will be radically improved for cars, cyclists and pedestrians. At the moment this is difficult to see.
All you are faced with are lots of cranes towering above the ubiquitous green fences.
To grasp the full scale of the project, you have to go way up high and be shown what's what by someone in the know.
Our tour guide for the day was Tamsin Greulich, communications manager of TT2, the consortium appointed to design, build, finance, and operate the new tunnel.
It is also the franchise holder for the two tunnels until 2037.
Taking us to the top of the nearby Monastery Court tower block, she pointed out how the tunnel is just one part of the jigsaw slowly coming together.
Starting at the Jarrow South junction section (the dreaded roundabout), you can see where the new tunnel enters the ground right next to the existing one.
As you pan north you can see the 'cut and cover' box trench in which the new dual carriageway tunnel will run.
By the time it reaches the river, it is no longer parallel to the old tunnel, but some 100 yards to the east.
At the river's edge on both sides there is a transition structure – a kind of airlock – which will connect on to the four 90m sections of tunnel, the last of which will be lowered into its dredged channel on the river bed today.
Once the tunnel sections are joined up and connected to the transition structure with specially-designed seals, the water can be pumped out and the tunnel made watertight.
This is expected to be completed by May. At this point the tunnel will enter its final phase of being fitted out and tarmaced, ready for traffic by February 2011.
By this time next year, the trench will also have been covered over. It is hoped that, one day, you might never even know it's there.
Tamsin said: "Once the construction is complete, the whole site will be landscaped and will have trees, grass and lovely footpaths. That's something exciting for everyone to look forward to.
"It has been a long project for the people of Jarrow, but everyone has been so patient and we have had very few complaints."
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Weather for South Shields
Saturday 04 February 2012
Today
Light sleet showers
Temperature: -1 C to 2 C
Wind Speed: 18 mph
Wind direction: South
Tomorrow
Sunny spells
Temperature: 1 C to 6 C
Wind Speed: 14 mph
Wind direction: West
