SOUTH KNOXVILLE — Gene Prater, 69, who collects a $2 toll at the midpoint of the Kerbela tunnel, walked the hill above it Tuesday morning with a carpenter’s level and a flashlight, partly to see how the tunnel was holding up and partly because he had read the Tennessee Lookout.
The Lookout reported that a member of the state’s Subterranean Transportation Infrastructure Coordinator Authority, asked about the Boring Company’s 9.5-mile tunnel under Nashville, said, “I don’t think I want to be one of the first ones riding through it.” A Southern Environmental Law Center report cited in the story says the route crosses karst.
Prater started at the plaque that reads ON THIS SITE, A TUNNEL and paced to his midpoint stake, stopping every few feet to set the level down on the ground. He said he has nothing against Nashville’s tunnel. “Anytime there’s a tunnel in the paper I get people up here wanting to go over it with me. When they had the appeal at City Hall I had a man ask to see the paperwork. I tell them it’s dry, it’s always been dry, but I figured today I’d go and look so I’m not just going on memory. It’s dry. The bubble sat right in the middle the whole way across. Marge says that’s not how you check for water.”
He took no readings at the east end, where the hill drops off behind the old Shriners lot. He said he does not go down there in wet weather.
A woman from Chapman Highway came through at 11:40, and Prater got up from his folding chair to take her toll.