Virginia's largest construction project, explained from the inside.
HRBT Tunnel Talk lets the people building Virginia's Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion explain their work, from a tunnel boring machine named Mary to a bird-monitoring program and a bridge more than 200 feet wide. It is the project telling its own story, plainly and proudly, with the engineering numbers left in.
PRESS PLAY
HRBT Tunnel Talk is what a megaproject sounds like when it explains itself. The project is the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion in Virginia, described on air as the Commonwealth's largest ever construction project. It covers twin bored tunnels, new bridges and a widened 10-mile corridor of I-64. The voices belong to the people doing the work. Paula Miller, the project's Communications Director, opens and closes recent episodes and asks engineers, managers and scientists to explain their jobs in terms a non-engineer can follow. Project Director Ryan Banas appears across years of episodes, and several of them pair his project update with a guest specialist. Show notes from 2022 into early 2024 credit Brooke Grow as host, and 2022 installments name Jim Utterback as Project Director. The central character, though, is a machine. Mary the tunnel boring machine weighs about 5,000 tons, carries a 46-foot accessible cutterhead and is described as the second largest TBM to work in North America. She is followed ring by ring through two tunnels. Listeners hear about a planned pause to add slurry pumps, a 55-ring record week, and two drives that took 51 and 48 weeks. Her partner, Katherine the Slurry Treatment Plant, has episodes of her own. Bridges get similar treatment. The conversation about the new South Trestle covers its width of roughly 203 feet, a 100-year service life before the first signs of corrosion, and a plan to turn demolished bridge sections into artificial reefs. Then there is the work nobody driving through will ever see. Sean Johnson, a geotechnical instrumentation and monitoring specialist, describes more than 4,000 data points watching for ground movement and vibration, a program in place since 2019. Environmental scientists Ana Romano and Sarah McMahon explain five years of steering colonial nesting birds away from the South Island with grid wire, mylar flagging, dogs and a bird phone. Episode titles widen the map further: environmental permitting, archaeological discoveries, barges and tugs, regional transportation funding, lane closures, the Hampton Roads Express Lanes Network and STEM learning at the project's Welcome Center. The register is upbeat and civic and comfortable with a pun, as a title like 'Mary is So Boring! Learn about progress on the new tunnel.' makes clear. Guests take time to translate jargon, defining hyperbaric pressure or explaining what an extensometer measures. This is the project's own account, and it sounds like one: proud of its milestones, generous with figures and quick to thank its partner agencies. A good starting point is 'Mary's Milestones Delivering the HRBT twin bored tunnels', which looks back over the machine's whole journey. For something less mechanical, 'FIVE YEAR SUCCESS STORY: BIRD MONITORING AT HRBT EXPANSION PROJECT' shows how the build shares space with wildlife.
Made for: Suits a listener who wants the engineering behind a major tunnel-and-bridge build explained without heavy jargon. It also suits anyone who travels the I-64 corridor through Hampton Roads and wonders what all the cranes and barges are doing.
What sets it apart: The show comes from the project's own communications staff rather than outside reporting, so it gives direct access to the engineers, scientists and managers on one specific build. That access comes with named machines and working figures.
HRBT Tunnel Talk follows the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion Project in Virginia. It is the largest ever construction project for the Virginia Department of Transportation. The series will explore funding, construction, employment opportunities, tunnel technology and benefits to the Commonwealth of Virginia.
Keeping 100,000 cars moving during a bridge rebuild is your kind of logistical puzzle.
Press play if you want
Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A grounded look at how planning and restraint carried Mary through two HRBT tunnel missions.
Mary's return to HRBT Tunnel Talk turns a finished tunnel-boring effort into a tidy, grounded look at how a major transportation project gets from planning to delivery.
A practical, well-scaled look at opening a roughly 203-foot-wide bridge while 100,000 cars keep moving.
HRBT Tunnel Talk frames the South Trestle Bridge opening as a feat of careful sequencing: bringing a more-than-mile-long, roughly 203-foot-wide bridge into service while keeping 100,000 cars moving each day.
A $4 billion tunnel project follows royal terns, pelicans, and the environmental team watching over them.
The HRBT expansion's bird story keeps its focus on the real-world work of building around colonial nesting birds that had used South Island for decades.
A grounded look at the tiny movements and vibrations that help guide HRBT expansion safety.
HRBT Tunnel Talk turns the hidden measurement work beneath the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion Project into something tangible. Shawn Johnson, a geotechnical instrumentation and monitoring specialist, explains how his team tracks movement and vibration around existing…
HRBT Tunnel Talk revisits Mary the Tunnel Boring Machine after her Sept.
HRBT Tunnel Talk opens on the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion Project's new South Trestle Bridge, introduced by Paula Miller, who says 2025 has brought the boring of the twin tunnels and the bridge opening between the HRBT and Norfolk shoreline.
HRBT Tunnel Talk visits the Norfolk, Virginia, Welcome Center, a former visitor center transformed into a project mini-museum on Navy property.
HRBT Tunnel Talk focuses on bird monitoring during the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel expansion, a $4 billion project adding about 10 miles of bridges, interstate, and twin tunnels.
Shawn Johnson says the HRBT project tracks more than 4,000 data points, many of them hourly, to monitor tunnels, bridges, and roadway fill.
Project Director Ryan Bannis and HRCP Area 3 Manager Jorge Ferreiro report that Mary has installed 290 rings, 25% of the second tunnel, after a two-week February pause.
An interview with project managers about the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion Project, discussing backgrounds and roles.
An interview with the environmental manager and project director about the environmental aspects of the HRBT Expansion Project.
VDOT officials discuss the Hampton Roads Express Lanes Network and its role in alleviating congestion alongside the HRBT Expansion Project.
Host Brooke Groh interviews project director Ryan Banas about recent progress on the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion Project.
Project director Jim Utterback and Mayor Donnie Tuck discuss the progress of the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel Expansion Project.
This episode explores opportunities for small, women, and minority-owned businesses to participate in the HRBT Expansion Project.
An informational podcast about the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel expansion project, covering funding, construction, and benefits.