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July 20, 2016

Bertha is back in business

By JOURNAL STAFF

SEATTLE — Seattle Tunnel Partners resumed mining on Monday after a month of planned maintenance on Bertha, the machine digging the replacement tunnel for the Alaskan Way Viaduct.

Bertha was idled on June 23. More than 40 shifts of work were done under hyperbaric conditions to change cutting tools and other maintenance in the space behind the cutterhead. STP changed 33 of the machine's 700-plus cutting tools.

Bertha has mined 3,108 feet of its 9,270-foot route, and built 470 of the 1,426 concrete rings that make up the tunnel. It is 120 feet below Spring Street and approaching Zone 5, which runs from Seneca to Union streets and settles into a path below First Avenue near the end of the zone.

STP expects to stop two more times for maintenance before reaching the north portal near the Space Needle.

The latest schedule, from February, shows that the tunnel will open in May 2018.




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