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Firstly an important part of the question starts with the scene from The Dark Knight Rises where Blake gets the kids from the orphanage. He asks a couple of them to go to neighbouring houses and tell them to take the south street tunnel or over the bridge. (see screen shot)

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In a later scene he takes the group to the bridge where after arguing with an officer the bridge is destroyed.

I have no major problem with them trying the bridge as it may have been closer or as the neighbours have been told to use it, he wants to make sure it's clear. But there's always that, why risk the bridge which is blocked by the army and take them to the tunnel which you know is now clear? At least go on your own to the bridge to clear it and let the kids take the other way out. Maybe I'm wrong...

So my main question is after that guy orders the bridge to be destroyed why don't they then attempt to take the tunnel instead?

Is it a lack of time to make it there, were they blocked in etc. If they were blocked in, could Blake have at least told people to go the other route, you know everyone back up and take the tunnel? Just wondered if this was overlooked as it's an important view of City and what's happening with Batman and the bomb situation.

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Okay I calculated a few things. From the moment the bridge was destroyed it was just over 5 minutes before The Bat flew past with the bomb. If that time is mirrored to the film events, with an average speed of say 40mph on clear roads, they could travel 4 miles in 6 minutes.

Additional information: The clock on the bomb has 10 minutes left when the bridge is destroyed. Halving that time for loading the bus and getting underway (best case), with 5 minutes on the road still wouldn't be enough time to get away from the sizeable blast.

The fully primed "neutron bomb" has a blast radius of 6 miles (9.6 km).

Due to the blast radius even if they attempted the tunnel straight after the bridge was destroyed, they probably wouldn't of made it. In hindsight taking the tunnel in the first place would have been better, but fair play being on the bridge did make a much more tense scene!

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  • How long did it take them to reload the kids on the bus. How long does it take to turn the bus around, 180 degrees. Where they the only vehicles on the bridge? If even the "best case" scenario is shaky or unlikely, probably no chance. Not sure tunnel is that much better of a choice. Seems like it would be easier to booby-trap a tunnel without being noticed than an occupied bridge. In any case, +1 for doing the timekeeping and math!
    – PoloHoleSet
    Aug 18, 2016 at 18:46
  • @AndrewMattson all good points thanks the main thing I didn't realise was how big the blast radius was, 6 miles is huge (Much larger than an Atom Bomb ). Just adds to that moment when the bridge is destroyed and he says "you killed use". There is 10 minutes on the clock when the bridge is destroyed so I just did half the time to get away as purely an estimate. You mention the tunnel might be booby-trapped, safe to say the bridge could be too especially as they destroyed the others into the City. Cheers for your input :)
    – tohood87
    Aug 19, 2016 at 8:20
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Seems to me that, with the reactor core winding down, there simply isn't time. Think about the amount of time they are on the bus before it the FlyingBatVehicle goes by and out over the water. Don't think they'd even get off the the bridge in that time. They knew it was imminent, so that's why they didn't try.

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