Bertha in ‘good’ shape, no timetable to resume tunneling

A deliberate, meticulous inspection of the tunneling machine beneath downtown Seattle has still not revealed why “Bertha” is stopped in her tracks.

The $80 million boring machine is about 1,000 feet into its 1.7 mile-long job.

Seattle Tunnel Partners and its tunneling contractor have inspectors in a protected chamber in front of Bertha, rotating and examining the cutting surfaces.

“We know that the contractor really hasn’t found anything that would indicate further what may have caused the stoppage issue that we have here,” said Matt Preedy, a deputy administrator with the Washington State Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project.

There is still no estimate as to when boring might resume.

Meantime, Preedy took reporters and photographers 80 feet below the surface Friday to near the entrance of the tunnel to show the progress underway on other parts of the Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement project.

“There’s over 300 people working on the site each and every day and we’re standing right here in the middle of a 600-foot long piece of what we call the cut-and-cover roadway, south of the tunnel and this is the piece of infrastructure that gets the cars and traffic from underground to above ground,” Preedy explained.

The boring machine hit a steel casing in early December and then stopped digging altogether on Dec. 7. So far, Preedy said inspections of the cutting face reveal no significant damage or unusual wear and tear.