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This 2010 photo shows the Woodrow Wilson Bridge (I-95 and I-495) looking south from the Alexandria, VA shoreline. (Photo by Steve Anderson.)
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Original span Type of bridge: Construction started: Opened to traffic: Total length: Clearance at center above mean high water: Width of bridge: Number of traffic lanes: Cost of original structure:
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Steel girder and bascule drawbridge September 25, 1958 December 28, 1961 5,900 feet (1,798 meters) 50 feet (15.2 meters) 90 feet (27.4 meters) 6 lanes $15,000,000
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New span Type of bridge:
Construction started: Opened to traffic:
Total length: Number of spans: Length of bascule span: Horizontal clearance of bascule span: Clearance at center above mean high water: Total weight of bascule leaves: Width of bridge: Number of traffic lanes: Structural steel used in superstructure: Concrete used in superstructure: Cost of original structure: Cost of project:
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Steel-and-concrete girder and bascule drawbridge October 20, 2000 June 9, 2006 (Outer Loop / east / north) May 30, 2008 (Inner Loop / west / south) 6,736 feet (2,053 meters) 18 spans 222 feet (67.7 meters) 175 feet (53.3 meters) 70 feet (21.3 meters) 4,000 tons (3,628 metric tons) 249 feet (75.9 meters) 12 lanes 35,000 tons (31,751 metric tons) 50,000 tons (45,359 metric tons) $824,000,000 (bridge structure) $2,476,000,000 (total project cost, including interchanges)
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FIRST PROPOSED FOR SHEPHERD'S LANDING: Initial plans for a vehicular crossing of the Potomac River south of the Anacostia River can be traced to 1942, when fears of sabotage to the Long Bridge prompted the Federal government to build a new railroad bridge. Known as the "Emergency Bridge," the new bridge stretched from the B&O Railroad at Shepherd's Landing south of the Navy Yard across the Potomac to Alexandria, Virginia. It had a movable span, which came from a dismantled Grand Trunk Western Railroad bridge in Michigan; this span allowed ships to pass from the Navy Yard downriver. Work on the 3,360-foot-long span began on June 3, 1942 and was completed on November 1 of that year.
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During its three years of service, the Shepherd's Landing averaged about five trains per day. With the end of World War II, and the reduced fears of sabotage, the Federal government removed the Shepherd's Landing "Emergency" Bridge from service on November 14, 1945. The temporary span was removed soon thereafter.
A NEW SPAN FOR THE HIGHWAY AGE: In 1951, the District of Columbia Board of Commissioners hired engineering design firm Modjeski and Masters to evaluate potential alternatives for a new Potomac River highway crossing south of the Anacostia River. The engineering report, which was issued in August 1952, presented two alternatives for a four-lane span across the Potomac as follows:
SHEPHERD'S LANDING BRIDGE: Beginning just south of the Naval Research Lab within District boundaries, where there was to have been a cloverleaf interchange with the "George Washington Memorial Parkway" (today's I-295 / Anacostia Freeway), the "Circumferential Highway" (as the Capital Beltway was known then) was to cross the Potomac, entering Alexandria at the current Second Street near Tide Lock Park. The main navigation channel was to be crossed by a 386-foot-long swing span with a 50-foot clearance above mean water. Upon entering Alexandria, the Circumferential Highway was to have tightly spaced interchanges with Washington Street (VA 400) and Patrick Street (US 1 northbound) / Henry Street (US 1 southbound). The Circumferential Highway was to turn south just past the US 1 interchange, then travel about one mile south along the Pennsylvania Railroad (now Amtrak / Virginia Railway Express / Metrorail) right-of-way before turning west along the current route of the Capital Beltway.
JONES POINT BRIDGE: Beginning at a point about three-quarters of a mile south of the District of Columbia-Maryland border, where there was to have been an interchange with the "George Washington Memorial Parkway" (today's I-295 / Anacostia Freeway), the Circumferential Highway (Capital Beltway) was to cross the Potomac via Roasalie Island, entering Alexandria between Old Town to the north and Jones Point to the south. As was the case for the Shepherd's Landing alternative, the main navigation channel for the Jones Point alternative was to be crossed by a 386-foot-long swing span, though it was to have a higher 70-foot clearance above mean water. West of the bridge approach, there was to have been a cloverleaf interchange at Lee Highway (US 1) near the then-new Hunting Towers apartment complex.
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The Commissioners' report favored the Jones Point alternative as the bridge approaches would go through relatively undeveloped land. In contrast, the Shepherd's Landing alternative would have required the taking of residential and commercial properties. The Commissioners recommended that the Jones Point Bridge be built after the proposed E Street Bridge (now I-66 / Theodore Roosevelt Bridge) was completed. However, the National Capital Planning Commission (NCPC) suggested that the Jones Point Bridge be built first as a Federal project, citing the urgent need for an expressway bypass of Washington, DC, as well as the inability of officials to pin down an alignment for the E Street crossing.
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This 1952 map shows the Jones Point and Shepherd's Landing alternatives for the proposed Potomac River Bridge. The Jones Point alternative ultimately was chosen for the site of the bridge. (Map supplied by Douglas A. Willinger.)
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GETTING AUTHORIZATION: Prior to construction, the Alexandria City Council acquired a 60-acre tract from the Federal government near Jones Point. Most of this land, which had been used as a Coast Guard station, was to be used to create Jones Point Park, though the city was to set aside land to the Virginia Department of Highways (VDH) for construction of the Alexandria bridge approach. The bridge also received the backing of the Department of the Interior's National Parks Service (NPS), as the bridge and its approaches did not disrupt any Federal park property.
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A subcommittee in the US House of Representatives gave unanimous approval for the Jones Point Bridge on June 3, 1954, stating that a bridge at the Jones Point location took precedence over construction of the E Street (Theodore Roosevelt) Bridge or future construction of a new bridge farther upstream at Roaches' Run. On August 30, 1954, the full US Congress authorized construction of the Jones Point Bridge. The $15 million cost of the bridge was to be borne by the Federal government, while the $9 million cost of the approaches was to be paid by the states of Maryland and Virginia.
On May 22, 1956, President Dwight Eisenhower transferred responsibility for the project to the US Department of Commerce, which at the time included the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR). That same day, the President signed legislation naming the proposed span the "Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge," after the 28th President. The following month, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and its Capital Beltway approaches were included in the new Interstate highway system; it was designated as I-495 in 1958.
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LEFT: This 1959 photo shows the piers being erected for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge, looking east toward Maryland. RIGHT: This 1959 photo shows the steelwork being built for the bridge, looking west toward Virginia. (Photos from Woodrow Wilson Bridge construction project website, Virginia Department of Transportation; www.wilsonbridge.com is no longer active.)
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"While marble, granite, and limestone have been used along with the steel and concrete, the design emphasizes unity, simplicity, and continuity. It is a beautiful, graceful structure, well deserving of the approval it received from the National Commission of Fine Arts." - Commerce Secretary Luther Hodges at the dedication of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge on December 28, 1961
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BUILDING THE ORIGINAL SPAN: Workers broke ground for the original Woodrow Wilson Bridge on September 25, 1958. The original bridge measured 5,900 feet from the Virginia shoreline in Alexandria to the Maryland shoreline in Oxon Hill, though about 400 feet of the bridge near the Virginia shoreline fell within the maritime boundaries of the District of Columbia. There were 13 separate construction contracts for the bridge.
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The original drawspan, which was about 500 feet east of the Virginia shoreline, was comprised of four separate bascule leaves, each with a steel grid deck roadway accommodating three lanes of vehicular traffic. When closed, the drawspan had 50 feet of vertical clearance and 175 feet of horizontal clearance. Flanking the drawspan were 31 steel girder spans, each averaging about 184 feet long.
Construction of the steel-and-concrete supports progressed through 1959, with the work completed toward the end of that year. Most of the major steelwork to support the drawspan and approaches was erected in the first half of 1960, and by the end of 1960, the concrete roadway was installed on the bridge. As 1961 began, all that needed to be completed were the interchanges on the Virginia and Maryland shorelines, as the Capital Beltway was at an earlier stage of construction at that time and would not be finished for another two to three years. Upon the opening of the bridge, motorists had to get on in Virginia at US 1 (Richmond Highway), while on the Maryland side, officials had to wait until the District of Columbia could complete its highway connection to the north, the Anacostia Freeway (I-295).
The original Woodrow Wilson Bridge was dedicated and opened to traffic on December 28, 1961, on what would have been the 105th birthday of the former President, who during his tenure led initial efforts to develop the Federal-aid highway program. The former First Lady, Edith Wilson, was to have been the guest of honor at the dedication ceremony, but she died that morning at the age of 89.
Although the bridge was built and owned by a Federal entity, the Bureau of Public Roads (BPR), and its successor agency the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), maintenance of the bridge was to be shared upon completion between Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia.
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These photos show the Woodrow Wilson Bridge not long after its 1961 completion. (Photos from Woodrow Wilson Bridge construction project website, Virginia Department of Transportation; www.wilsonbridge.com is no longer active.)
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"When you have both building a bridge on the cheap and have more traffic than was ever anticipated, you will quickly exhaust its useful life." -- US Representative Jim Moran (D--Virginia), in a 1999 Congressional subcommittee hearing
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OBSOLETE SOON AFTER IT OPENS: The Woodrow Wilson Bridge was designed to accommodate 75,000 vehicles per day by the 1980s, but with its approaches far from completion, it carried an average of only 18,000 vehicles per day in 1962, its first year of operation. With the completion of the Capital Beltway in 1964, the bridge already was accommodating its design volume by the end of the 1960s. At that time, engineers replaced a six-inch-high concrete median barrier with a steel guardrail to minimize head-on collisions.
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Traffic flows increased through the 1970s as the original plan to route I-95 through the District of Columbia was canceled, forcing I-95 traffic onto the eastern half of the Capital Beltway. The accompanying change in designation to I-95 came in 1977.
By the early 1980s, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge was carrying about 130,000 vehicles per day, about 20 percent of which comprised of heavy trucks and, as part of I-95, a high percentage of intercity traffic. Toward the end of 1982, workers embarked on a year-long, $24 million project to replace the worn, potholed deck of the bridge with a stronger, lightweight, plastic-coated concrete deck. The deck was held in place with a quick-setting glue such that the roadway could be usable by the following morning. The roadways also were widened to 44 feet, from 38 feet, in each direction, allowing room for a seven-foot-wide shoulder in each direction for breakdowns, and the median steel guardrail was replaced by a four-foot-high concrete ("Jersey") barrier. New light standards also were installed on the bridge.
However, this project proved only a temporary solution as gridlock continued to grow on both sides of the Potomac, and particularly as eight lanes of Capital Beltway traffic in Maryland and Virginia had to squeeze onto the six-lane Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The frequent openings on the bridge--it had to be opened as many as 220 times per year--only added to the gridlock. With the bridge carrying 150,000 vehicles per day in 1988, the FHWA that year began a cooperative study between various local, state, and Federal agencies to discuss conditions on the bridge.
DISCUSSION SHIFTS AWAY FROM REHABILITATION: By the mid-1990s, the bridge was carrying about 190,000 vehicles per day, and experts predicted that by 2020, about 275,000 vehicles would cross the bridge each day. In 1994, Hardesty & Hanover, a New York-based engineering firm which specializes in movable bridge design, recommended that the bridge be inspected several times a year instead of once every two years as required by law. The firm was increasingly concerned that the effect of heavy trucks would damage the span, and perhaps lead to catastrophic collapse, even though the bridge at the time was only 33 years old. Other engineers said that even if the bridge was rehabilitated as it was in the 1980s, it still would have a limited design life of less than a decade, and that trucks still might be banned sometime in the future.
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This 2003 photo shows the original Woodrow Wilson Bridge heading west into Virginia. The new span is shown in its early stages of construction. (Photo by Jim K. Georges.)
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This 2005 photo shows the original Woodrow Wilson Bridge heading east into Maryland. The photo shows that the piers for the new eastbound span have been built, and work has started on building the deck. (Photo by Laura Siggia-Anderson.)
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EVALUATING ALTERNATIVES: In 1996, a panel of Federal, state, and local leaders devised a plan that would accommodate the 275,000 vehicles anticipated to cross the span by 2020. An early plan floated by Alexandria officials proposed a 10-lane, 180-foot wide span that required only minimal changes to nearby interchanges. However, the panel found that the Alexandria plan failed to address future needs, such as HOV and HO/T lanes.
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Another plan proposed a high-level span that would eliminate the need for a drawbridge, but officials in Alexandria feared that such a crossing would have towered over the city's historic Old Town. Moreover, engineers were concerned that the steep grades required for a high-level Potomac River span would have made it difficult for trucks to climb, thereby creating more congestion.
The most expensive of the alternatives was a $3.5 billion tunnel, which likely would have been a four-tube design with each tube accommodating three lanes of vehicular traffic. However, this alternative was rejected for not only financial reasons, but also environmental reasons, notably the need to build ventilation towers and the lack of nearby sites where dredged material could be disposed. As with the case of the high-level bridge alternative, grade concerns likely played a role in rejection of this alternative, especially regarding the adjacency of the I-295 interchange in Maryland and the US 1 interchange in Virginia.
SELECTING A REPLACEMENT DESIGN: The panel finally decided on a preferred alternative that was to have the following characteristics.
ROADWAY DESIGN: The new Woodrow Wilson Bridge was to be comprised of two side-by-side drawbridges, with six lanes in each direction. It was to measure 244 feet wide, making it the widest long-span bridge in the world. The extra lanes were to permit the separation of traffic flows into express and local lanes, and on the approaches, in the local lanes for ramps to US 1 in Virginia and I-295 in Maryland. One of the express lanes in each direction was to be reserved for future HOV lanes, HO/T lanes, or exclusive bus lanes. Unlike the old bridge, which had substandard (seven-foot-wide) shoulders added as part of the early 1980s widening project, the new bridge was to have full-width (12-foot-wide) emergency shoulders along the left and right lanes of both local and express roadways. A multi-use bike/ped path was to be built along the southern edge of the edge.
DRAWBRIDGE DESIGN: The new drawbridges, like the old ones, had leaves that were 222 feet long and allowed for 175 feet of horizontal clearance. However, the new drawbridges were to have 70 feet of vertical clearance, or 20 feet more than the existing drawbridge. Engineers planned that the bridge would open 70 times per year, representing a 70 percent reduction from the 220 openings per year with the existing bridge. Although most of the openings were expected to be for pleasure craft, about 30 percent of the bridge openings were to be for commercial ships, mostly for ships heading to and from Alexandria's Robinson Terminal, a historic terminal used until 2013 by the Washington Post for storing and distribution newsprint. With the site now headed for redevelopment following its sale by the Washington Post, even fewer bridge openings are likely.
SIDE SPAN DESIGN: The new bridge was to have 17 concrete-and-steel side spans, each averaging about 383 feet long, or more than twice the length of the old side spans. The nearly triangular piers were designed to evoke the arched design of the Memorial Bridge and the Key Bridge upriver, though at the same time, the open-air design of the piers gave the bridge a more contemporary look.
MARYLAND APPROACH: On the Maryland side of the bridge, the Maryland State Highway Administration (SHA) rebuilt EXIT 2 (I-295 / Anacostia Freeway) and EXIT 3 (MD 210 / Indian Head Highway) on the Capital Beltway. The two interchanges had been rebuilt previously in 1990, when the I-295 approach was extended to MD 210. During this interchange reconstruction project, four through lanes were built in each direction on the Capital Beltway, with at least two through lanes for both express and local lanes in each direction; at its widest, the Beltway through these interchanges is 10 lanes wide. Additional ramps also were provided for the new National Harbor development, as well as a new grade-separated, partial-cloverleaf interchange at the intersection of MD 210 and MD 414 (Oxon Hill Road).
VIRGINIA APPROACH: On the Virginia side of the bridge, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) rebuilt EXIT 176 (VA 241 / VA 611 / Telegraph Road) and EXIT 177 (US 1 / Richmond Highway) on the Capital Beltway. The original 1961 construction had a modified cloverleaf interchange at US 1, which at the time served as the western terminus of the Capital Beltway; there was a flyover ramp from southbound US 1 to the Maryland-bound Beltway. A second modified cloverleaf was added at VA 241 in 1964 when the Beltway was extended; that interchange featured a flyover ramp from the Maryland-bound Beltway to northbound VA 241. During this interchange reconstruction project, four through lanes were built in each direction on the Capital Beltway, with at least two through lanes for both express and local lanes in each direction; at its widest, the Beltway through these interchanges is 12 lanes wide. Construction of the Virginia approach required the demolition of the East Tower in the Hunting Towers complex (now called Bridgeyard Old Town).
PARKS: Across the Maryland approach in Oxon Hill, a new pedestrian overpass and park was built. This overpass is part of a ped / bike path that connects National Harbor with Old Town Alexandria via the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. In Virginia, the VA 400 / South Washington Street bridge was widened to accommodate landscaped areas, as well as the trailheads for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and Mount Vernon Trails.
COST BREAKDOWN: In November 1997, the FHWA announced a record of decision for the preferred alternative, which was estimated to cost $2.4 billion. The bridge itself was to cost $826 million ($67 million for the drawbridge itself), with the remaining costs allocated to the widening of Capital Beltway approaches and the new interchanges in Maryland and Virginia. A more detailed cost breakdown follows:
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These before-and-after shots of the demolition of the old span (before shot: July 17, 2006 and after shot: August 28, 2006) were taken of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge looking east from the Virginia shoreline. (Photos by Virginia Department of Transportation; link to presentation.)
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