The UCSD Tunnels
Disclaimer:
All of this info is secondhand of course, I myself would never violate any UCSD Student Conduct Guidelines by entering into the tunnels. This page is meant to quell the mystery of the tunnels, thereby negating the need for UCSD students to explore the tunnels themselves. :)
UCSD's tunnels are really pretty simple compared to most colleges, but they do have their interesting features, including very long, perfectly straight stretches, among other things. UCSD was built starting in the 1960's, so all of our tunnels are relatively new, and most of them are pretty open and well lit. (but not all, of course) Tunnel development here at UCSD was pretty much over in the 1980s. All new buildings now tend to get their pipes buried, as opposed to through tunnel links.
Warning - There are spoilers here!
The Tunnels...
Which buildings are connected?
The UCSD utility tunnels are in 2 distinct sections. These are simple enough that they can actually be described pretty easily in words. (something which could not be said for many other colleges!) I figured a textual description would be interesting and useful to some. Here will be the
.. someday.
- The first, older & smaller section is Revelle. These tunnels start at Anchorview (the old Physical Plant), connect to all of the mud huts (through tiny, unlit, dirty crawlspace tunnels exiting into the Laundry Rooms) , continue to Galbraith Hall (UGL), branch to York, branch to the current Physical Plant, continue on to Bonner, then they become basically "public", crossing under the Revelle walkway over to Urey. By "public", I mean you can see this section any time, as it is part of the Urey basement (the part with the huge pipes on the South side of the hall) The section of these tunnels after Galbraith is round, unlike most of UCSD's tunnels.
- The main section of the UCSD tunnels basically does a loop around the Eucalyptus grove/Sun God in the center of campus. It starts from the East side of the Physical Plant. After a short stretch it branches (at an outside vent which can be seen on Gilman Drive) into the loop. Going clockwise around the loop, the tunnel continues for a long, straight stretch, turning almost directly beneath the Grove Caffe. It turns towards the Gym, which is connected through a small branch. This is also the location of the most well known Tunnel entrance, the manhole on the hump (the one with "UCSD" on it, light can be seen through it at night). Just north of this corner is a branch to Mandeville. The tunnel continues and branches to the Biology building. (this entrance can be walked up to in the basement of Biology.. you can look in, but the door is heavily chained/alarmed) Continuing on, the tunnel splits at AP&M;, which has a tunnel entrance in the basement. The branch here goes west to Muir, ending at McGill hall/the Rat. There is a vent here, right next to the stairs going beneath TOQ. Contnuing around the loop, the tunnel turns east at the Muir Booster Station, which is the loud set of fenced-in pipes next to Campus Loop Drive and Petersen Hall. The tunnel then heads towards Cog Sci, where there is a loud vent fan that can't be missed. It continues east under the walkway at a steep down-grade and passes another vent next to the library. Beneath the concrete area in front of the library there is a 3-way junction, with a manhole out (again, the one with UCSD on it.) The left branch leads into the library, apparently into the utility room inside the music listening library. The right branch goes south, almost prefectly straight, for the entire length of Library Walk, past a loud fan in the middle of Gilman Dr., and to the quad next to the Medical Library. Here is another manhole, and a branch left (East) over to the Basic Sciences Building. The tunnel continues south after this for a bit, then it angles back to the Physical Plant, meeting the beginning of the loop along the way.
- There is also a "Miscellaneous" tunnel, unconnected to any others, which crosses underneath the "ridge walk"-from the bottom floor of Cog Sci over to Chemical Research.
UCSD Tunnel Maps
I have an old , discarded blueprint of the tunnels, scans of which will be up soon. In the meantime, here is my two minute hand-drawn map of the UCSD Tunnels: