Woodrow Wilson Bridge
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| Image:Woodrow wilson bridge june06.jpg New bridge span, just after opening. | |
| Carries | 6 lanes of I-95/I-495 |
|---|---|
| Crosses | Potomac River |
| Locale | Alexandria, Virginia and Fort Washington, Maryland |
| Maintained by | Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project |
| Design | Double-leaf Bascule bridge |
| Total length | 5,900 ft (2,053 m) |
| AADT | Approx 200,000 veh/day |
| Opening date | December 28, 1961 (original span) June 10,2006 (new outer loop span) May 2008 (new inner loop span) |
| Destruction date | 1961 span closed July 15, 2006. Demolished Aug 29, 2006. |
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- Interstate 95 (District of Columbia) redirects here. For the former I-95, see Interstate 395 (District of Columbia).
The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge is a bascule bridge that spans the Potomac River between the independent city of Alexandria, Virginia and Prince George's County, Maryland. The bridge carries Interstate 95 and Interstate 495 (the Capital Beltway). The drawbridge on the original bridge opened approximately 260 times a year, disrupting traffic on the beltway, which carries approximately 250,000 cars each day.<ref>Preer, Robert. "New road could take the strain off D.C. Beltway", The Boston Globe, 2006-08-03. Retrieved on 2006-08-05.</ref> As a result, a new taller, wider span, which will need to be opened less often, is scheduled for completion in 2008. Part of this reconstruction (the outer loop span) is complete and open for traffic.
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[edit] History
The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge was planned and built as part of the Interstate Highway System created by the U.S. Congress in 1956. Construction of the bridge was begun in the late 1950s, and it opened to traffic on December 28, 1961. Coincidentally, President Wilson's widow, Edith, died that very morning; she was supposed to have been the guest of honor at the bridge's dedication ceremony.<ref name="edith">Ginsberg, Stephen. "From Its Hapless Beginning, Span's Reputation Only Fell", The Washington Post, July 15, 2006, p. A01. Retrieved on July 16, 2006. (in English)</ref> The bridge has its west abutment in Virginia, and the remaining majority of the bridge is within Maryland jurisdiction since the Potomac River is within Maryland's borders, with about 300 feet (91 m) of the western mid-span portion of the bridge crossing the tip of the southernmost corner of the District of Columbia. As originally built, the bridge had 6 traffic lanes, and was 5,900 feet (1,798 m) long. The structure was built as a bascule bridge to allow large, ocean-going vessels access to the port facilities of Washington, D.C.
[edit] President Woodrow Wilson
The bridge is named in honor of the 28th President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924), who when elected in 1912 was serving as the Governor of New Jersey, but who had been a native of Staunton, Virginia. While he was President, Mr. Wilson reportedly spent an average of two hours per day riding in his automobile to relax, or to "loosen his mind from the problems before him."
President Wilson was an advocate of automobile and highway improvements in the United States. In 1916, he stated "My interest in good roads is... to bind communities together and open their intercourse, so that it will flow with absolute freedom and facility."
[edit] Capacity and maintenance
Due to unanticipated circumstances, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge has—out of necessity—exceeded all expectations of the highway planners. The bridge was originally designed to handle 75,000 vehicles a day. Due to substantial growth in and around the Washington metropolitan area, travel demand across the bridge has grown to 200,000 vehicles per day, more than twice its original design capacity. The bridge has serious and well-documented maintenance problems and has undergone continuous patchwork maintenance since the 1970s. It was completely re-decked in 1983. The bridge remains in distress, in part because of the large volume of traffic that passes over it daily.
One of the reasons for the excess traffic of the bridge is that the eastern half of the Capital Beltway carries I-95 traffic between points south of Washington and points north of Washington. It was originally planned in the 1960s and 1970s that some of the north-to-south traffic from outside the Washington area would travel through the city on the proposed North Central Freeway. Construction of this urban freeway was subject to considerable neighborhood and political dispute, and the project was ultimately canceled (see I-395). This resulted in the main route of I-95 being forced to combine with that of I-495 over the bridge and had the effect of more than doubling the forecasted bridge traffic.
Two particular incidents demonstrated the bottleneck status of the Wilson Bridge. On Veterans' Day 1987, a snowstorm shook up traffic so badly that many commuters ran out of gas and ended up spending the night in their cars on the Bridge. In November 1998, the bridge was closed for several hours during the afternoon rush when a suicidal man threw himself over the side after a seven-hour standoff with police. The man, Ivin L. Pointer, survived the fall from the Bridge.<ref name="Ibrahim">"Jumper on Bridge Causes Gridlock", The Washington Post, November 5, 1998. Retrieved on 2006-08-24. (in English)</ref>
[edit] Replacement facilities
 Image:Bridge drawing.svg | This article or section contains information about a future bridge, which is under construction. It may contain information of a speculative nature and the content may change dramatically as the construction completed, and more information becomes available on it. |
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| This section documents a current event. Information may change rapidly as the event progresses. |
Maryland, Virginia, and federal highway officials have been confronting the problems and exploring alternatives for many years. After considerable study and public debate, it was determined that a plan doubling the capacity and increasing the height of the draw portion to reduce the frequencies of openings at the same location offered the best solutions.
Construction began on the replacement facilities and approaches in 1999. The existing Wilson Bridge is being replaced by two new side-by-side drawbridges with a total of 12 lanes and 70 feet of vertical navigational clearance at the draw span. The first new six-lane Potomac River bridge opened for northbound Outer Loop traffic on June 10, 2006, with only minor delays (the lane striping of the bridge and approach did not match up initially). The first car to cross was a Toyota Corolla.<ref name="McCrummen">McCrummen, Stephanie. "Wilson Bridge Span Open Early; Now to Do It All Over Again", The Washington Post, June 12, 2006, p. B01. Retrieved on July 16, 2006. (in English)</ref><ref name="">"A Cry of 'This Is Awesome!' As Cars Cruise New Span", The Washington Post, June 11, 2006, p. C01. Retrieved on July 16, 2006. (in English)</ref>
The Inner Loop of the Beltway was transitioned onto the future outer loop express lanes for a two-year interim basis on July 16, 2006, at midnight. The original 1961 bridge was originally to be demolished at 11:59 p.m. local time, on August 28, 2006, to make room for completion of the second six-lane bridge (the future permanent home of the Inner Loop) located between the original bridge and the new Outer Loop span. Local commuter Daniel Ruefly was given the honor of initiating the detonation, after he won a contest where he was judged the driver to have suffered the most from the bridge's congestion<ref>"US commuter blows up bottleneck", BBC News, 2006-08-29.</ref>. The detonation was later delayed to 12:15 a.m., and again to 12:25. Finally, the bridge was demolished at around 12:35. The air space above the bridge, and the Beltway in both directions, were both closed during the detonation. The second bridge span is expected to be completed by May 2008, with the majority of the highway project completed by 2009, and the upgraded Telegraph Road interchange by 2011.
The new spans are 20 feet (6 meters) higher, which is tall enough to allow most boats to pass underneath without having to raise the bridge, thus eliminating the large traffic tie-ups that opening the span causes, though quite tall ships will still requite the opening of the bridge. It is hoped that the number of openings will be reduced from about 260 per year to about 65 per year, according to FHWA, which must cooperate with the US Coast Guard about bridge openings. The enormous bridge replacement project also includes an extensive redesign and reconstruction of the Capital Beltway as it approaches the new bridge from both the Maryland and Virginia sides. The new bridge will also have a pedestrian/bicycle trail.<ref name="">Brochure from the dedication of the eastbound span May 18, 2006</ref><ref name="Planning">Woodrow Wilson Bridge Replacement National Capital Planning Commission, August 5, 2004</ref> The entire cost of the project is estimated at $2.5 billion.
The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge is one of only a handful of drawbridges on the U.S. Interstate Highway System.
[edit] References
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[edit] External links
- Official Website for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge
- Woodrow Wilson Bridge (I-495 and I-95), by Roads to the Future
- President Wilson: Motorist Extraordinaire, 1916 article from Northwest Motorist
| Bridges of the Potomac River | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Upstream 14th Street Bridge Image:I-395.svgImage:US 1.svg CSX | Woodrow Wilson Bridge Image:I-95.svg Image:I-495.svg | Downstream Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial Bridge Image:US 301.svg | |
| Preceded by: Virginia | Interstate 95 District of Columbia | Succeeded by: Maryland |
