Papago Freeway Tunnel

Encyclopedia : P : PA : PAP : Papago Freeway Tunnel

The Papago Freeway Tunnel, or Deck Park Tunnel, is part of the I-10 Freeway system as it passes through downtown Phoenix, Arizona. The tunnel extends from approximately North 3rd Avenue to North 3rd Street under what is now Margaret T. Hance Park (Mayor of Phoenix from 1976-1983). At a length of 2887 feet, it ranks as America's 42nd longest vehicular tunnel.

Two tubes, each carrying five lanes of traffic flanked by two emergency lanes, can carry up to 16,000 vehicles per hour. Additionally, there is a single-lane gated tunnel which is not yet in service reserved for city buses and fire department vehicles.

The deck park tunnel has been designed to ventilate naturally using the cars energy to help propel air through the specially designed tunnel. In times of heavy traffic and in the event of fire each tunnel has four fans providing ventilation to prevent the dangerous buildup of carbon monoxide. The tunnel has a large diesel generator approximately 50 meters east of the westbound entrance to the tunnel, ensuring that the lighting, video surveillance, and intercoms have continuous power even during an outage. For the safety of motorist intercoms are located every 150 feet within the tunnel.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.