Holland Tunnel
The Holland Tunnel is a vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River that connects Hudson Square and Lower Manhattan in New York City in the east to Jersey City, New Jersey, in the west. The tunnel is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and carries Interstate 78. The New Jersey side of the tunnel is the eastern terminus of New Jersey Route 139. It consists of two tubes: the eastbound tube is a toll road, while the westbound tube is toll-free. The Holland Tunnel is one of three vehicular crossings between Manhattan and New Jersey; the two others are the Lincoln Tunnel and George Washington Bridge.
The Holland Tunnel is named for Clifford Milburn Holland, its initial chief engineer, who died suddenly in 1924 prior to its opening. It was the world's first mechanically ventilated tunnel, with a ventilation system designed by Ole Singstad, who oversaw the tunnel's completion. The tubes are made of cast-iron rings covered by concrete and measuring in diameter, running parallel under the river. Each tube fits two lanes and has of vertical clearance. At the western end of the tunnel, the westbound tube exits onto 14th Street, while the eastbound tube is accessed from Boyle Plaza on 12th Street. At the eastern end, the eastbound tube exits onto the Holland Tunnel Rotary, while the westbound tube is accessed from Freeman Plaza.
Plans for a fixed vehicular crossing over the Hudson River were first drawn up in 1906. Disagreements prolonged the planning process until 1919, when a tunnel under the river was approved in lieu of a bridge. Construction of the Holland Tunnel started in 1920, and it opened in 1927. At the time of its opening, it was the longest continuous underwater tunnel for vehicular traffic in the world. There were plans to connect the tunnel to highways on both ends, but the highway on the New York side, the Lower Manhattan Expressway, was never completed. Tolls were collected in both directions until 1970, when tolls for westbound traffic were abolished. The tunnel was refurbished in the 1980s and the 2020s.
Description
The Holland Tunnel is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. It consists of a pair of parallel tubes underneath the Hudson River. The tunnel was designed by Clifford Milburn Holland, the project's chief engineer, who died in October 1924, before it was completed. He was succeeded by Milton Harvey Freeman, who died less than a year after Holland did. Ole Singstad then oversaw the completion of the tunnel. The tunnel was designated a National Historic Civil and Mechanical Engineering Landmark in 1982 and a National Historic Landmark in 1993. Emergency services at the Holland Tunnel are provided by the Port Authority Police Department, who are stationed at the Port Authority's crossings.Tubes
Materials and dimensions
Each tube has a diameter, and the two tubes run apart under the Hudson River. The exteriors of each tube are composed of a series of cast iron rings, each of which comprises 14 curved steel pieces that are each long. The steel rings are covered by a layer of concrete. Each tube provides a roadway with two lanes and of vertical clearance. The north tube is between portals, while the south tube is slightly shorter, at. If each tube's immediate approach roads are included, the north tube is long and the south tube long. Most vehicles carrying hazmats, trucks with more than three axles, and vehicles towing trailers cannot use the tunnel. There is a width limit of for vehicles entering the tunnel.Both tubes' underwater sections are long and are situated in the silt beneath the river. The lowest point of the roadways is about below mean high water. The lowest point of the tunnel ceiling is about below mean high water. The tubes descend at a maximum grade of 4.06% and ascend at a grade of up to 3.8%. The tubes stretch an additional from the eastern shoreline to the New York portals, and from the western shoreline to the New Jersey portals. These sections of the tunnel are more rectangular in shape, since they were built as open cuts that were later covered over. The walls and ceiling are furnished with glazed ceramic tiles, which were originally engineered to minimize staining. The majority of the tiles are white, but there is a two-tile-high band of yellow-orange tiles at the bottom of each tube's walls, as well as two-tile-high band of blue tiles on the top.
The northern tube, which carries westbound traffic, originates at Broome Street in Lower Manhattan between Varick and Hudson Streets. It continues to 14th Street east of Marin Boulevard in Jersey City. The southern tube, designed for eastbound traffic, originates at 12th Street east of Marin Boulevard, and surfaces at the Holland Tunnel Rotary in Manhattan. The entrance and exit ramps to and from each portal are lined with granite and are wide. Although the two tubes' underwater sections are parallel and adjacent to each other, the tubes' portals on either side are located two blocks apart in order to reduce congestion on each side.
The Holland Tunnel's tubes initially contained a road surface made of Belgian blocks and concrete. This was replaced with asphalt in 1955. Each tube contains a catwalk on its left side, raised above the roadway. Five emergency-exit cross-passages connect the two tubes' inner catwalks. When the Holland Tunnel opened, the catwalk was equipped with police booths and a telephone system, stationed at intervals of.
Traffic
The volume of traffic going through the Holland Tunnel has remained steady despite tight restrictions on eastbound traffic in response to the September 11 attacks, including a ban on commercial traffic entering New York City put in place after an August 2004 threat. Aside from a sharp decline immediately following the September 11 attacks, the number of vehicles using the Holland Tunnel in either direction daily steadily declined from a peak of 103,020 daily vehicles in 1999 to 89,792 vehicles in 2016., the eastbound direction of the Holland Tunnel was used by 14,871,543 vehicles annually.Ventilation
The Holland Tunnel was the first mechanically ventilated underwater vehicular tunnel in the world. It contains a system of vents that run transverse, or perpendicular, to the tubes. Each side of the Hudson River has two ventilation shaft buildings: one on land, and one in the river approximately from the respective shoreline. All of the ventilation buildings have buff brick facades with steel and reinforced-concrete frames.The shafts within the river rise above mean high water. Their supporting piers descend, of which are underwater and are embedded in the riverbed. The river shafts double as emergency exits by way of shipping piers that connected each ventilation shaft to the shoreline. The New York Land Ventilation Tower, a five-story building with a trapezoidal footprint, is tall. The New Jersey Land Ventilation Tower is a four-story, building with a rectangular perimeter.
The four ventilation towers contain a combined 84 fans. Of these, 42 are intake fans with varying capacities from per minute. The other 42 are exhaust fans, which can blow between per minute. Exhaust ducts are located at the corners of the ventilation towers, while supply ducts are in the central portion. Compartments housing exhaust fans are positioned near the corners under the exhaust stacks, with the central portions of the fan floors free for intake fans, and the central section of each outer wall for air intakes. At the time of the tunnel's construction, two-thirds of the 84 fans were being used regularly, while the other fans were reserved for emergency use. The fans blow fresh air into ducts, which provide air intake to the tunnel via openings at the tubes' curbside. The ceiling contains slits, which are used to exhaust air. The fans can replace all of the air inside the tunnel every 90 seconds. A forced ventilation system is essential because of the poisonous carbon monoxide component of automobile exhaust, which constituted a far greater percentage of exhaust gases before catalytic converters became prevalent.
Approach plazas
Boyle Plaza
The approach to the Holland Tunnel in Jersey City begins where the lower level of NJ Route 139 and the Newark Bay Extension merge. On May 6, 1936, the section of what became Route 139/I-78 between Jersey Avenue and Marin Boulevard was named in memory of John F. Boyle, the former interstate tunnel commissioner. Despite being part of the Interstate Highway System, I-78 and Route 139 run concurrently along 12th and 14th Streets to reach the Holland Tunnel. Westbound traffic uses 14th Street while eastbound traffic uses 12th Street. The plaza was restored and landscaped by the Jersey City government in 1982.There is a nine-lane toll plaza for eastbound traffic only at the eastern end of 12th Street, just west of the tunnel portal. The original toll plaza had eight lanes; it was renovated in 1953–1954, and the current nine-lane tollbooth was constructed in 1988.
Holland Tunnel Rotary
Soon after construction of the tunnel, and amid rising vehicular traffic in the area, a railroad freight depot, St. John's Park Terminal, was abandoned and later demolished. The depot was located on the city block bounded by Laight, Varick, Beach, and Hudson Streets. The depot's site was used as a storage yard until the 1960s when it became a circular roadway for traffic exiting the eastbound tube in Manhattan.The plaza originally had four exits. It was renovated in the early 2000s with landscaping by Studio V Architecture and Ives Architecture Studio. A fifth exit was added in 2004.
Freeman Plaza
Originally used as the toll plazas for New Jersey-bound traffic, the small triangular patches of land at the mouth of the westbound tube entrance are referred to as Freeman Plaza or Freeman Square. The plaza is named after Milton Freeman, the engineer who took over the Holland Tunnel project after the death of Clifford Milburn Holland. The Freeman Plaza received its name just before the tunnel opened in 1927. The toll plaza was removed circa 1971 when the Port Authority stopped collecting tolls for New Jersey-bound drivers, and the square was later fenced off by the Port Authority. The small maintenance buildings for toll collectors were removed around 1982 or 1983. A bust of Holland sits outside the entrance to the westbound tube in Freeman Plaza.A business improvement district for the area, the Hudson Square Connection, was founded in 2009 with the goal of repurposing the square for pedestrian use. Hudson Square Connection and the Port Authority collaborated to create a five-year, $27 million master plan for Freeman Plaza. In 2013, Freeman Plaza West was opened to the public. Bounded by Hudson, Broome, and Watts Streets, it features umbrellas, bistro tables and chairs, and tree plantings.
In 2014, Freeman Plaza East and Freeman Plaza North were opened on Varick and Broome Streets, respectively. The plazas contained chaise longues, bistro tables, and umbrellas. In 2016, the Hudson Square Connection added solar powered charging stations to both plazas, and introduced a summer lunchtime music series, called live@lunch. A statue by the artist Isamu Noguchi was also installed within the plaza. To the south of Freeman Plaza, between Varick, Watts, and Canal Streets is One Hudson Square, a New York City designated landmark in 2013.