I live just across the Seekonk River from the tunnel. There are currently no serious plans at all to reopen the tunnel for any use. The last (very vague) proposal made about 6-7 years ago was by a developer who was proposing a major condo development on the East Providence side and floated the idea of restoring the bridge and tunnel to run some kind of tram/shuttle service to downtown but AFAIK there was no funding ever provided......
The Providence & Worcester RR has lifted the tracks that ran on the other side of the River. They still have a branch running into East Providence but the line now terminates about a mile North of the lift bridge. They packed earth under the bridge that crossed the tracks at the bottom of Waterman Ave. The reason they abandoned the trackage is that the large parcel of reclaimed land the P&W built South of the Rt. 195 Bridge is now slated to be developed as an upscale residential/commercial development. This was originally supposed to be a port facility for containers and/or bulk commodities but the City of East Providence turned against the idea over the years. The future of the waterfront areas on both sides of the river seems to be upscale residential housing although much of the planned development is on the backburner now due to the real estate market.
As far as the City of Providence goes, they have floated the idea of some kind of streetcar/tram/light rail system linking the downtown with Warwick's T.F Green airport and I guess hypothetically that could be extended east through the tunnel but these proposals are very tentative........
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"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
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