Opening day for the Baltimore Harbor 7,200-foot-long 8-lane Fort McHenry Tunnel, Saturday November 23, 1985. Ceremonies were held on the freeway between the east approach portals and the toll plaza. Notice the four tubes and the massive ventilation building. Extra-bright lighting is used in the first few hundred yards of the inbound portals. The Fort McHenry Tunnel cost $750 million to build, and construction took 5 1/2 years. It is the widest underwater tunnel in the world. This project required over 3.5 million cubic yards of soil excavation, over 900,000 cubic yards of concrete, and over 100 million pounds of structural steel. Tunnel