<Tr> <Th_colspan="2"> Statistics </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Toll </Th> <Td> Cars $15 (each direction, peak, round trip discount available) E-ZPass </Td> </Tr> <P> The Chesapeake Bay Bridge--Tunnel (CBBT) is a 23 - mile (37 km) fixed link crossing at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, the Hampton Roads harbor and nearby mouths of the James and Elizabeth Rivers in the American state of the Commonwealth of Virginia . It connects Northampton County on the Delmarva Peninsula and Eastern Shore with Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake, and Portsmouth on the Western Shore and South side / Tidewater which are part of the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of eight close cities around the harbor's shores and peninsula . The Bridge - Tunnel originally combined 12 miles (19 km) of trestle, two 1 - mile - long (1.6 km) tunnels, four artificial islands, four high - level bridges, approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) of causeway, and 5.5 miles (8.9 km) of northeast and southwest approach roads--crossing the Chesapeake Bay and preserving traffic on the Thimble Shoals and Chesapeake dredged shipping channels leading to the Atlantic . It replaced vehicle ferry services that operated from South Hampton Roads and from the Virginia Peninsula since the 1930s . Financed by toll revenue bonds, the Bridge--Tunnel was opened on April 15, 1964, and remains one of only ten bridge--tunnel systems in the world, three of which are located in the water dominated Hampton Roads area of Tidewater Virginia . </P> <P> Since it opened 53 years ago, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge--Tunnel has been crossed by more than 100 million vehicles in the more than half - century passed . The CBBT complex carries U.S. Route 13, the main north--south highway on Virginia's Eastern Shore on the Delmarva peninsula, and, as part of the East Coast's longstanding Ocean Highway, provides the only straight direct link along the East Coast and Atlantic Ocean, between the Eastern Shore and South Hampton Roads regions, as well as an alternate route to link the Northeast U.S.A. and points in between with Norfolk and further south to the Carolinas and Florida . The Bridge--Tunnel saves motorists 95 miles (153 km) and ​ 1 ⁄ hours on a trip between Virginia Beach / Norfolk and points north and east of the Chesapeake and Delaware Valley, River and Bay without going through the traffic congestion in the Baltimore--Washington Metropolitan Area further west in Maryland . The $15 toll is partially offset by some savings of highway tolls in Maryland and Delaware and avoiding often heavy traffic on north - south Interstate 95 (I - 95) built in the 1960s and completed in the late 1970s and parallel older United States Route 1 (US - 1) from the 1920s . From 1995 to 1999, at an additional cost of almost $200 million dollars, the capacity of the above - water portion of bridges on the facility was increased and widened to four lanes . An upgrade of the two - lane tunnels was proposed in following years but has not yet been carried out . </P>

When was the chesapeake bay bridge tunnel built