The official website that covers the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project: The URL is www.wilsonbridge.com. The Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project office that was located in Alexandria, Virginia prepared this website.  The website was removed from the Internet upon project completion in 2013.

Beginning in 1988, the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) initiated a cooperative study effort among the affected jurisdictions and agencies to address the pre-existing facility's operational and structural deficiencies. In 1992, a Coordination Committee was formed, composed of broad representation from the affected jurisdictions in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia and local, regional, State and Federal government. The Committee's mission was "to identify the solution which enhances mobility while assuring that community and environmental concerns are addressed." Following a thorough evaluation of options, review and comment periods for the public and agencies, and public hearings, the Coordination Committee approved a "Preferred Alternative" in September 1996. The new facility will feature side-by-side, movable span, twin bridges with a 70-foot vertical navigational clearance at the drawspan when it is closed, and unlimited vertical navigational clearance when the drawspan is open. The four adjacent interchanges (two in Virginia and two in Maryland) will be upgraded to accommodate the local/express system. The Committee's preference was based on an evaluation of technical analyses and substantial community input. The Preferred Alternative was then subject to review by the FHWA which agreed with the Coordination Committee's extensive review, and produced a Record of Decision for the Selected Alternative in November 1997.

The pre-existing 6-lane bridge, which carries I-95 and I-495 across the Potomac River, to be replaced with side-by-side bridges with a total of 12 lanes and 70 feet of vertical navigational clearance at the main span drawspan when it is closed.

See New Potomac River Bridge (use Internet Explorer) on the official project website for details and the typical section lane configuration. The website was removed from the Internet upon project completion in 2013.

The first 6-lane new Potomac River bridge opened for traffic in mid-2006, the second new 6-lane new Potomac River bridge opened for traffic in mid-2008, and the entire project is expected to be complete in 2013. The pre-existing Potomac River bridge has been demolished and removed.

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge is one of only nine bridges on the U.S. Interstate Highway System that contains a movable span. Under Coast Guard regulations, the 50-foot vertical navigational clearance drawspan opened approximately 260 times per year to allow for the passage of marine traffic with greater than 50 foot height above water, traveling the Potomac River. This is nearly one-half the number of openings that occurred before November 1992, when previous regulations were less restrictive. The 260 openings per year resulted in additional delays and congestion within the highway corridor. Because the new drawbridges are 20 feet higher than the pre-existing bridge, the number of openings will be reduced to about 65 per year (or about one per week), down from the current nearly 260 openings per year. Based on current marine traffic, this is a 75 percent reduction.

Source for above section - official project website www.wilsonbridge.com. The website was removed from the Internet upon project completion in 2013.

The pre-existing WWB was opened in 1961, and some people asked why it wasn't utilized in the WWB expansion project, wondering why should we "waste" a large cross-river Interstate highway bridge built "only" about 40 years ago. See Roads to the Future section Woodrow Wilson Bridge Structural Problems for information about why the current bridge wasn't expected to be able to handle heavy truck traffic beyond about 2005 without a major structural upgrade. A project to structurally upgrade and redeck the pre-existing six-lane bridge to make it adequate for the next 20-30 years, would cost nearly as much as the cost of one of the new six-lane bridges. So there was no real financial incentive to incorporate the pre-existing bridge into the project, and besides it would have 20 feet less main span vertical navigational clearance than each new six-lane span, and it would have narrower shoulders than each new six-lane span. Express and local traffic will be handled on the new twin-span 12-lane facility, and there is no desire by Alexandria to keep the pre-existing bridge for a local arterial, nor are there any local arterials planned that would connect to it. Local needs are for 12 lanes across the Potomac River here, and there is not enough urban space there for three bridges with a total of 18 lanes, and their approach roads; nor is there the need. The pre-existing Potomac River bridge would be demolished and removed after the first new bridge opens in mid-2006, so the original bridge served its purpose for 45 years before it was retired.

As written earlier, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project began with preliminary studies in 1988, and in 1992 the project Coordination Committee was formed, composed of broad representation of public officials from the affected jurisdictions in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia; and local, regional, State and Federal government. Preliminary engineering, location studies and environmental studies began at that point in 1992. A number of alternatives were studied to address the inadequacies of the pre-existing Potomac River bridge, and the alternatives included a new fixed high-level bridge, a new drawbridge, a widening of the pre-existing bridge, a new tunnel to be used in conjunction with the pre-existing bridge, a new tunnel with elimination of the pre-existing bridge, and the no-build alternative. Following a thorough evaluation of options, and review and comment periods for the public and agencies, and public hearings, the Coordination Committee approved a "Preferred Alternative" in September 1996. This was a 12-lane facility called "Alternative 4A, Current Alignment Side-by-Side Drawbridges with a 70-foot Navigational Clearance", and it includes widening 7.5 miles of the I-95/I-495 Capital Beltway and upgrading four adjacent interchanges (two in Virginia and two in Maryland), in addition to the new Potomac River bridge. The Preferred Alternative was then subject to review by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), which agreed with the Coordination Committee's review, and produced a Record of Decision (ROD) for the Selected Alternative in November 1997, and then approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS).

The alternative for a fixed high-level bridge, with a main span with 135 feet of vertical navigational clearance above mean high water, would have cost about the same or a little bit more than the new drawbridge alternative chosen. Normally, such a fixed high-level bridge alternative would be the logical choice for a bridge that crosses a major shipping channel, since all marine traffic will be able to pass under the bridge without any need for a drawspan. Local and state officials in Maryland favored the selection of the fixed high-level bridge alternative.

Any drawspan, even one that opens infrequently, has a lot of large-scale machinery needed to operate the movable portion of the bridge, and that machinery needs periodic maintenance. The drawspan also needs a highway traffic control system of warning signals, stop signals, movable traffic gates, advance changeable message warning signs, and an operator's control tower; and a marine traffic control system of warning signals, and a radio to communicate with marine vessels. The operator's control tower needs to be staffed 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, with personnel to communicate with marine traffic and to operate the drawspan and highway traffic control signals.

A strong sentiment was expressed by many of the citizens of Old Town Alexandria, against the high-level bridge alternative, since some felt that it would tower over the waterfront. Also, such a bridge whose main span over the main Potomac River shipping channel would be only about 500 feet from the Virginia shoreline, would have Virginia elevated overland bridge approaches which would extend west of the U.S. Route 1 interchange, and these elevated bridge approaches themselves, while lower than the highest point of the bridge, would still loom over the south end of Old Town, and the U.S. Route 1 interchange itself would be completely (or almost completely) on elevated bridge structure. These long overland elevated bridge approaches would be necessary so as to not have an excessively steep grade between the land highway and the highest point of the bridge. At a maximum grade of 4%, the typical maximum grade allowable on a freeway bridge over a river, that would be over 3,000 feet along the highway between the start of the grade on the land highway and the highest point of the 135-foot clearance bridge.

Actually, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge is far enough from most of Old Town, that the river portion of a 135-foot vertical clearance bridge probably would not be an aesthetic problem. The Roads to the Future author lived in Old Town many years ago, back in the 1970s, and his parents lived there until the late 1980s, about three blocks from the river, and he can testify that in many places in Old Town, the bridge is not visible at all. Still, a lot of residents opposed the 135-foot clearance high-level bridge, while being willing to accept the Current Alignment Side-by-Side Drawbridges with a 70-foot Navigational Clearance, which would be only 20 feet higher than the pre-existing bridge. Plus, like was said, the elevated overland bridge approaches for the 135-foot clearance bridge, would present a real aesthetic problem; while the western end of the 70-foot clearance bridge would not extend any further west than the western end of the original bridge.

Another potential problem for the high-level bridge alternative, is the fact that the approach to Washington National Airport passes over the WWB, with the airport being about 3 and 1/2 miles from the WWB, and there was concern that if the Coordination Committee were to select the high-level bridge alternative, that the Federal Aviation Administration might object to an obstacle 145 to 150 feet high (300 to 350 feet high for the towers if a cable-stayed design was chosen) being in the landing pattern for the airport. Airliners typically are at 1,000 to 2,000 feet altitude over the Potomac River as they pass directly over the bridge while in the northbound landing approach (higher if taking off to the south), so the high-level bridge probably would not be a problem; but the issue of getting FAA approval for such a bridge was just another concern in addition to the aesthetic impact of such a bridge on the Alexandria waterfront and Alexandria overland sections.

Some citizens advocated replacing the pre-existing Potomac River bridge with a tunnel, and a couple of tunnel alternatives were studied, one about 100 feet south of and parallel to the pre-existing bridge, and one a bridge-tunnel about 1/3 mile south of the pre-existing bridge. The first would involve an 8-lane tunnel and removal of the pre-existing bridge. The second would involve an 8-lane bridge-tunnel and a split Beltway alignment whereby the pre-existing bridge would be retained as a 4-lane bridge with full shoulders, and both would be part of a 12-lane section of Beltway. Both tunnel alternatives were extremely expensive, 2 and 1/2 times the construction cost of either new bridge alternative. The underwater tunnels would prohibit trucks carrying hazardous materials, while the bridges would continue to allow them. The length of the tunnels and the exhaust fumes in them would make infeasible the provision of a bicycle/pedestrian facility, which regional bicycle advocacy groups strongly supported, which does not exist on the pre-existing bridge, but is planned for the new bridge. The split alignment alternative with the new bridge-tunnel and retention of the pre-existing bridge, would likely allow for the provision of a bicycle/pedestrian facility on the bridge, but unless large trucks were banned from the pre-existing bridge portion, extensive rehabilitation and a major structural upgrade would be needed on the pre-existing bridge (estimated in 1994 at a cost of $213 million); and if large trucks were banned, then all trucks crossing the river on the Beltway crossing at Alexandria, would have to use the new bridge-tunnel, which would prohibit trucks carrying hazardous materials. An underwater tunnel involves a massive amount of surplus excavation, both on the cut-and-cover land approaches, and on the underwater sunken-tube sections. The width and length of the tunnel alternates would be on a similar scale to the I-95 Fort McHenry Tunnel in Baltimore, Maryland, and that project had 3.5 million cubic yards of surplus excavation removed from the underwater tunnel trench, enough to fill a portion of Baltimore Harbor and provide enough new land for the Seagirt Marine Terminal. That tunnel project was built 1980-1985, and today's higher environmental standards would make it very difficult to obtain permits on such a project on the Potomac River at Alexandria, since there is probably nowhere within 100 miles to deposit that much surplus excavation. See Roads to the Future article Fort McHenry Tunnel for more details.

A Woodrow Wilson Tunnel would put the highway under the river and out of sight, but for the variety of reasons as detailed above, it is really not a feasible idea, and the issue of the construction cost alone would be a show-stopper.

So the Current Alignment Side-by-Side Drawbridges with a 70-foot Navigational Clearance, became the compromise of choice, and as written earlier, the additional 20 feet of vertical navigational clearance, as compared to the original bridge's 50 feet of vertical navigational clearance, will reduce drawspan openings to an average of one per week. That is not an excessive number of drawbridge openings, actually a very small number; and the WWB Coordination Committee thought that way too. So this section answers the question that some might have, "Why is the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge going to have a drawspan?"

All of the above information addresses the project planning for the design of the Potomac River bridge, that went into the approval of the "Preferred Alternative" in September 1996, and the Record of Decision (ROD) by FHWA in November 1997. In 1999, a few radical environmentalist/transit groups, including anti-roads obstructionists from the Sierra Club, tried to delay (hoping to ultimately kill) the project by demanding "more studies", specifically insisting that the project planning officials revisit and restudy the tunnel proposals, knowing that the tunnel was infeasible for multiple reasons, knowing that such studies could easily set the project schedule back two years or more with new studies, new preliminary engineering, new EIS, new ROD, and new FEIS approval. This post-ROD demand of "more studies" is a common tactic used by such demagogic groups when they want to obstruct the will of the majority of the people as expressed through the public process, and to try to replace that consensus decision with the will of a tiny minority. The Sierra Club even produced a "study" that claimed that a 10-lane Potomac River tunnel could be built for about the same cost as the 12-lane bridge alternate chosen, allegedly supported by an "engineering study" from some firm in Europe; but the Club was serving "whoppers", along with a big helping of baloney.

In any event, in response to those strident demands, the Coordination Committee instructed the project managers of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project to conduct a study of the tunnel (actually a re-study since they had already studied it in the project planning process in the mid-1990s), and the WWB Design Center released an engineering report on March 8, 2000, called the "Immersed Concrete Tunnel Concept (ICTC) Report."

The Washington Post had an article announcing the release of the ICTC report, on March 9, 2000, "Bridge Preferable to Tunnel, Report Says". It said that the WWB project managers released a report on the prior day, and that the report showed that constructing a new bridge would be less expensive and would cause less environmental harm than building a tunnel to carry the comparable amount of traffic. It said that project engineers found that the tunnel scheme would cause the overall WWB program (7.5 miles of expanded Beltway including the new Potomac River crossing), to cost twice as much as the approved 12-lane drawbridge alternative; and that the tunnel scheme would require disposing of six times more dredge material from the riverbed, and would cause the loss of more parkland and would have a larger impact on wetlands. The article said that the official study was conducted after environmental activists said during public hearings in February 2000, that a tunnel built with preconstructed concrete tubes could significantly lower the cost of a new Potomac River crossing to replace the aging bridge. Predictably, these activists handwaved away the ICTC report, saying that they do not consider the official evaluation to be objective.

The WWB Design Center official ICTC report confirms the infeasibility of replacing the WWB with a tunnel. While the tunnel would offer obvious benefits including elimination of most visual intrusions, elimination of river traffic disruptions, less construction noise impacts, the return of the Potomac River to its pre-bridge environment; there are 12 different negative aspects in 4 different categories, of the tunnel alternative versus the approved bridge alternative.

From the "Immersed Concrete Tunnel Concept (ICTC) Report" produced by the WWB Design Center, March 8, 2000 (copy in blue text):

The evaluation focused on four major criteria:
à Environment (what natural and human environmental resources would be affected?)
à Cost (how much would it cost to build, operate and maintain?)
à Operations/Safety (how would the new facility function?)
à Constructability (how can it be built and over what time period?)

Environment
à More than six times the quantity of dredge and associated issues including dredge spoil disposal, length of dredging period and river traffic disruptions (bridge: 500 thousand cubic yards; "new" tunnel: 3.15 million cubic yards).
à More than one-third larger impact on wetlands and other "waters of the United States" (bridge: 63.8 acres; "new" tunnel: 87.9 acres)

Cost
à More than two-and-a-half times higher capital cost for the river crossing (bridge: $700 million; "new" tunnel: $1.9 billion).
à For the full project (including interchanges and other elements), more than 60 percent higher cost (bridge: $1.89 billion; "new" tunnel: $3.1 billion).
à Nearly two times higher operation and maintenance costs (bridge: $11.7 million; "new" tunnel: $24 million).
à Higher maintenance costs for existing bridge due to three-year delay in retiring the old facility.

Operations/Safety
à 13 percent less "person-carrying" capacity (bridge: 17,150/hour; "new" tunnel: 15,000) and longer backups.
à Diversion of at least 600 to 1,000 trucks a day carrying hazardous materials cargo.
à Safety concerns associated with merging/exiting that are presented with a tunnel (lane changing usually prohibited in tunnels).
à Safety concerns associated with allowing lane changes in a tunnel (not normally permitted in tunnels but necessary due to adjacent interchanges).
à No pedestrian/bike path.

Constructability/Schedule
à Two-year delay in project start due to environmental process and design.
à One-year longer construction period (bridge: 6 years; "new" tunnel: 7 years).
à Above delays result in three-year delay in project completion.
à Additional constructability challenges, including problematic support of the existing bridge during construction of adjacent tunnel.

[end of copied ICTC Report Executive Summary]

The ICTC engineering report has detailed cost estimates for the tunnel option, plus typical sections and plan view and profile views of the tunnel and approaches. (The overall WWB project cost estimate has increased slightly since the March 2000 report).

Since 2000, Washington regional studies for a circumferential rail transit "Purple Line" have advanced the concept for using the two HOV/transit lanes on the WWB for this line, which could possibly be light rail transit or rapid rail transit. These studies are still preliminary, and no decision has yet been made on how to use these transit lanes. Both Virginia and Maryland have Capital Beltway improvement studies underway, and these are looking at various alternatives, some of which would involve constructing HOV/Busway lanes, one or two each way, on the inside of each Capital Beltway roadway; and these would connect seamlessly with the future HOV/transit lanes that will be constructed on the 7.5 miles of Beltway in the Woodrow Wilson Bridge and approaches project. The current WWB project is very expensive, but the multi-modal nature of what will be built, will pay off large dividends in the future, since the expanded highway corridor will not only carry cars and trucks, but will also carry public bus transit including express buses, and these dedicated transit lanes will carry either rail transit or HOV/Busway, sometime in the future beyond 2007, when the necessary connecting facilities are constructed. These future transit lanes won't allow for both rail transit and HOV/Busway, the future choice will have to be either one or the other. If rail transit is chosen, then public transit buses will be able to use the general-purpose lanes of the post-2008 five-lane-each-way Woodrow Wilson Bridge and approaches on the Capital Beltway for trans-Potomac bus service.

The official Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project website was a treasure trove of information, diagrams and photos.  The website was removed from the Internet upon project completion in 2013.  All the following links are gone.

The official website has excellent slide presentations about the project, PowerPoint Presentation, and it is available in both PowerPoint and Adobe formats. The file size is over 3 megabytes. The audience is the general public with a Maryland emphasis, and the topics are: General Information, Funding, Bridge Features, Community Involvement, Dredging, Pile Driving, Bridge Construction Stages and Timing, Equal Access to Business Opportunities.

Again from the official project website, here is a diagram of the Overall Project Area. Here are Project Renderings (use Internet Explorer) of the proposed Woodrow Wilson Bridge and widened Beltway, and Typical Sections of the lane configuration on the Potomac River bridge, both with and without rail transit. Here are construction photos on the project. Here are schedule graphics, and it has links to plan views of the project and the limits and details of each contract. Here is the 2004 / 2005 Overview Brochure, with details and plan views of the project.

Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project Cost and Funding

The initial WWB Project financial plan was Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project, Initial Financial Plan, August 2001, from Initial Financial Plan - August 2001. The WWB website was removed from the Internet upon project completion in 2013.

Excerpt (blue text) from Initial Financial Plan:

Project Funding: The total funding necessary to complete the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project is currently projected to be $2,442.9 million. A summary of those funding sources can be found in Exhibit 4-4. Currently, the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project has received committed special federal funds totaling $1,585.1 million from the following sources; the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Authority Act of 1995, the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA-21), General Revenue from Federal Public Law 106-346, and Revenue Aligned Budget Authority (RABA) legislation. The August 10, 2001 letter from Vincent Schimmoller, FHWA Deputy Executive Director, to the States and District of Columbia (see Attachment U) has reinforced this commitment. He states… "The U.S. Department of Transportation is fully committed to providing $1.586 billion in Federal funds authorized for the Project by the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge Authority Act of 1995, as amended. This is in addition to Federal funds otherwise authorized or apportioned to you under the Federal-Aid Highway Program." In addition to the committed special federal funds, this financial plan assumes that the project will receive additional RABA of approximately $27.5 million in FFY2002 and approximately $18 million in FFY2003. Therefore, the sponsoring agencies anticipate that this additional special federal funding will be available in the future. However, should the actual amount of RABA made available to the Woodrow Wilson Bridge in FFY2002 or 2003 be different – either higher or lower – appropriate funding sources would be adjusted in future financial plans for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge to ensure that the entire project remains fully funded.

The 2003 Financial Plan Annual Update was Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project, 2003 Financial Plan Annual Update, March 2004, from WWB Project Overview - Funding. The financial data below comes from there. The WWB project website was removed from the Internet upon project completion in 2013. 

The total cost for the new Potomac River Bridge, four reconstructed interchanges, parkland improvements, and community enhancements is estimated at $2,426.8 million. The 7.5-mile long project area will include the I-95/I-495 Capital Beltway from west of the VA-241 Telegraph Road interchange in Virginia, to east of the MD-210 Indian Head Highway interchange in Maryland.
è The 12-lane twin-span Potomac River Bridge will cost $826.1 million.
è The Maryland 10- and 12-lane dual-divided land highway approaches, two reconstructed urban interchanges, and enhancements, will cost $464.4 million.
è The Virginia 10- and 12-lane dual-divided land highway approaches, two reconstructed urban interchanges, and enhancements, will cost $1,120.3 million. This will include a large landscaped cover at Washington Street over the Beltway in Alexandria.
è The D.C. and other costs will amount to $16.0 million.

The Potomac River Bridge construction and the Maryland land highway approach construction is being administered by the Maryland State Highway Administration, and the Virginia land highway approach construction is being administered by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

The Washington Post has permanent website links to a collection of their articles about the Woodrow Wilson Bridge project.

Building a New Wilson Bridge
Wilson Bridge Special Report
Wilson Bridge Key Stories
Early Wilson Bridge Links

New Woodrow Wilson Bridge Clears Legal Hurdles

There was a lawsuit filed against the selected build alternative. The City of Alexandria was one of the plaintiffs, but they withdrew from the litigation without going to court when the project officials made design compromises with the city in March 1999. The other plaintiff in the lawsuit was a citizens activist/obstructionist group in Alexandria called Coalition for a Sensible Bridge. The lawsuit was filed in federal district court in an attempt to force further planning and environmental studies on a smaller 10-lane design that had been previously rejected by project officials during the project development process. A U.S. District Court judge made a flawed decision on April 13, 1999, and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs on 3 out of the 4 counts in the lawsuit, ruling that the 10-lane design must receive more intensive planning and environmental studies, and the judge even engaged in "highway engineering from the bench" by making comments in his ruling document that the project officials should consider a fixed high-level bridge instead of a drawbridge. There were clear aesthetic and engineering reasons for project officials selecting the 70-foot vertical navigational clearance drawbridge instead of the 135-foot vertical navigational clearance fixed high-level bridge, and the judge went outside of his job description when he made those comments, since his job is to deal with the rule of law as it pertains to highway development projects. The defendant (FHWA) appealed the ruling. A U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals 3-judge panel completely overturned the U.S. District Court judge's ruling, 8 months later, on December 17, 1999.

The Washington Post had an article on Friday, December 17, 1999, "Appeals Court Clears Way for Wilson Bridge". Excerpts follow (blue text):
A federal appeals panel ruled today that plans for a new 12-lane Woodrow Wilson Bridge can go forward as scheduled, reversing a lower court's decision that threatened to scuttle or seriously delay the project. The ruling by the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals was a victory for the Federal Highway Administration, which wants to begin construction on the $1.9 billion project in October. Plans call for the first span of the bridge to be completed by 2004, and officials say they are racing against time: the current six-lane structure, built in 1961, is deteriorating from overuse. The project's future has been in doubt since last April, when U.S. District Judge Stanley Sporkin ruled federal transportation officials failed to adequately assess the new bridge's impact on the environment and historic sections of Old Town Alexandria. In particular, Sporkin said officials should have more fully considered a 10-lane alternative. In a unanimous opinion, a three-judge appeals panel found that Sporkin misinterpreted requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act and National Historic Preservation Act. The judges agreed with transportation planners who said the 10-lane alternative would not have been sufficient to meet the region's long-term traffic and safety needs. The 12-lane version, they said, provided a reasonable approach to the problems.

The U.S. Supreme Court rarely agrees to hear appeals on cases of this type (lawsuits against location and design decisions by transportation agencies). The plaintiffs asked the Supremes to hear an appeal, but the Supremes refused, thus ending the lawsuit.

The Washington Post had an article on October 3, 2000, "Congress Pledges More for Wilson Bridge". Excerpts follows (blue text):
Yesterday the Supreme Court refused to intervene in the lawsuit appeal by the plaintiffs against the appellate court decision last December in favor of the current project, overturning a district court ruling against the project.

Four agencies share the maintenance and operation of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. The District Department of Transportation (DDOT) of the District of Columbia is responsible for the draw span, the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDOT SHA) maintains the bridge structure, the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT) supplies water and electrical power to the bridge, and the U.S.Coast Guard has authority over the raising and lowering of the draw span. See Woodrow Wilson Bridge from Maryland Civil Engineering Structures, by Johns Hopkins University Department of Civil Engineering.

That arrangement will change when the new bridges are complete in 2008.

The Woodrow Wilson Bridge itself has belonged to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) since the bridge's inception, the only Interstate highway section owned by the federal government and not by the respective state, and an agreement was worked out in August, 2001 by FHWA, Virginia and Maryland, to turn over the ownership of the new bridge, when it is completed, to joint ownership by Virginia and Maryland.

A VDOT News Release on June 1, 2001, "Virginia Transmits Endorsed Woodrow Wilson Bridge Financing Agreement to Maryland for Submission to Federal Highway Administration", had this excerpt (blue text):
Virginia Secretary of Transportation Shirley Ybarra today forwarded to Maryland officials an updated and endorsed Project Financial Plan and Ownership Agreement, clearing the way for the release of $1.585 billion in federal transportation funds to construct a new Woodrow Wilson Bridge. In a letter today to Maryland Transportation Secretary John Porcari, Secretary Ybarra said, "On behalf of the Commonwealth of Virginia, I am pleased to endorse an updated Project Financial Plan and Bridge Ownership Agreement for the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Corridor Reconstruction Project. As outlined in his May 24, 2001 letter to Governor Glendening, Governor Gilmore has approved joint ownership of the new bridges and has directed me to update Virginia's project cost estimates to include the most recent engineering estimates as well as inflation costs and a 10% contingency budget over the life of the project".

An MDOT SHA News Release on June 18, 2001, "Maryland Approves Woodrow Wilson Bridge Financial Plan and Ownership Agreement", had this excerpt (blue text):
Finalizing months of negotiations and financial analysis, Maryland State Highway Administrator Parker F. Williams has signed the final Woodrow Wilson Bridge financial plan and ownership agreement and forwarded both to Virginia and Washington D.C., respectively, for signatures. After representatives from both jurisdictions sign the documents, project staff will deliver them to the Federal Highway Administration for approval by US Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta, expected in July.

The ownership agreement was approved and signed by all parties in August, 2001. A Richmond Times-Dispatch article on August 12, 2001 had an article, "Bridge project nets U.S. approval - Va.-Md. ownership, funding details OK'd", and had this excerpt (blue text):
Plans to replace the Woodrow Wilson Bridge took another step forward Friday when the U.S. Department of Transportation approved ownership and funding details. "This has now been signed by all the parties, so this represents a major milestone in our ongoing attack [on] highway congestion," said Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta. Virginia and Maryland will own the new twin-span bridge, which will replace the 40-year-old span linking Alexandria, Va., and Oxon Hill, Md., over the Potomac River along interstates 95 and 495.

Legal description of past and future WWB ownership, from FHWA document "Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project Labor Agreement Request - Decision" (blue text):
The Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge is the only part of the Interstate System that is owned by the Federal Government. In the Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge Authority Act of 1995, Title IV of National Highway System Designation Act of 1995, Pub. L. 104-59, 109 Stat. 568, (November 25, 1995), as amended by Section 1116 of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century, Pub. L. 105-178, 112 Stat. 107, 158-160 (June 9, 1998) (Bridge Act), Congress laid out a plan for transferring the Federal government's ownership of the Bridge to a regional authority or one or more of the jurisdictions in the region. An ownership agreement and financial plan setting forth the manner in which this transfer will take place as the Project is being constructed was signed by all parties and approved by the U.S. Secretary of Transportation on September 7, 2001. Under the Bridge Act, Congress has made more than $1.5 billion of special Federal funding available to Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia toward the construction of a replacement bridge and upgrading four interchanges, two on each side of the Potomac River. The bridge component of the Project, of which the superstructure contract is a part, is eligible for 100% Federal funding.

Woodrow Wilson Bridge - Construction

Woodrow Wilson Bridge - Construction on Capital Beltway dot com

Capital Beltway dot com is the Capital Beltway projects annex to Roads to the Future.

The I-95/I-495 Woodrow Wilson Memorial Bridge over the Potomac River near Alexandria, Virginia received a complete redecking in 1983.

The bridge has 6 lanes, it is 5,900 feet long, it was opened to traffic in 1961, and it forms the southern Potomac River crossing for the Capital Beltway.

The bridge was designed for 75,000 vehicles per day (VPD), but by 1983, it was carrying about 107,000 VPD and the bridge deck was in an advanced state of deterioration. Closing the bridge for a year or more, normal for a redecking job with standard cast-in-place concrete, was considered impossible. The bridge even then was one of the busiest in the nation, and shutting it down for an extended time period would have been inconceivable.

The bridge is owned by FHWA. The Maryland State Highway Administration was responsible for administering the redecking job.

Cianbro Corp. of Pittsfield, Maine was the contractor, and the contract was awarded for $23.6 million, with a bonus of $9,200 for each day the contract was completed ahead of the deadline of May 4, 1984. The contractor agreed to an identical penalty for each late day. The contractor put a total of 170 workers on the project to ensure expeditious completion. The contract was completed in about 8 months, in late September 1983, so Cianbro indeed did a quick job, and they were rewarded for it. Incentive/disincentive contract clauses such as this are an excellent tool for getting projects like this done under traffic, and completed quickly.

A normal bridge deck replacement project would entail closing all or one half of the deck for an extended period of time, so that the entire deck could be demolished and removed, and another entire cast-in-place deck built in its place. Normal bridge-quality concrete needs about 30 days for each pour to set before it is strong enough to handle traffic.

Due to the heavy traffic volumes, and due to the infeasibility of closing all or half of the bridge deck, federal and Maryland authorities decided to utilize a then-new technique of installing precast reinforced concrete roadway deck slabs on top of the steel girders with fast-setting polymer concrete. Work was done at night, and the 6-lane roadway was completely open during the daytime. Workers would close one 3-lane roadway at about 8:00 PM, and maintain traffic on the other 3-lane roadway, with one lane each way, and the middle lane closed. At about 6:00 AM, the closed roadway would be reopened, and the bridge would function in its normal 6-lane configuration.

On a regular 10-hour weeknight shift, workers installed 13 precast panels, each 46'8" wide x 12'8" long. On the bridge's overland sections in Virginia, a crew would typically place 6 sections, due to some confinement on the ground. The second crew, working on the overwater section, could install 7 sections, because the panels were on nearby barges.

Four barges were used. One brought the slabs out onto the river to the site. Another hauled away the removed sections of the old deck. A third barge served as an equipment carrier, and a fourth carried a crane that lifted equipment onto the bridge deck at the start of each shift, and off the bridge deck at the end of each shift. This equipment included a diesel-powered, 7-1/2-foot-diameter concrete-cutting circular saw, floodlights, and tool sheds.

The saw crew would start cutting out 35-ton panels of the old road deck. These were lifted and lowered by crane either onto a barge or onto land. Part of the overall procedure was to cut out more concrete deck each night than was replaced. The gap was covered with a temporary three-section steel grating deck designed by the contractor. The grating was bolted down each night and was adjusted in height to make the slope transition between the old and new slab surfaces. The new roadway surface is 4-1/2 inches higher than the old one because of the bearing pad system. When driving the bridge in the daytime, a motorist traveled over this large hump at about 25 mph. It was a rather rough ride over the joints between the new prefabricated sections, and it was a slow ride (25 to 40 mph) on the bridge for the duration of the project.

After the old road deck section was removed, the contractor lowered the new slabs into position. They rest on shims set adjacent to bearing-pad forms on the exterior girder and the continuous stringers. Cast-in-place polymer-concrete bearing pads were the key to the entire construction system. This concrete was designed to set within an hour. Each of the 1,026 precast panels was transversally post-tensioned (with steel bars) at the plant where it was built. Longitudinal post-tensioning was performed after installation of a long series of panels, and that is when the joints between the prefabricated panels would be cemented by polymer-concrete. After the entire old road deck had been replaced by the new precast deck panels, the entire bridge deck was overlaid with a 1-1/2 inch layer of hot-mix asphalt pavement.

The old bridge deck was 89 feet wide, and the new bridge deck is 93 feet wide. The old bridge deck had a New Jersey Barrier median and narrow sidewalk type parapets, and each roadway was 38 feet wide. The new bridge deck has a New Jersey Barrier median and New Jersey Barrier parapets, resulting in each roadway being 44 feet wide. So the old deck essentially had no shoulders, while the new deck has a 7-foot emergency shoulder on the right of each roadway. That provides enough room for a disabled car to stop. That has been a significant improvement, because disabled vehicles had regularly caused major congestion problems during peak hours.

This project did not involve the drawspan portion of the bridge. The drawspan is comprised of 4 bascule leaves, each with a steel grid deck roadway.

Source: Engineering News-Record magazine article "A Quick Switch in the Dark", September 1, 1983.

Engineering News-Record magazine is published weekly by McGraw-Hill Construction Information Group.

A 1994 Washington Post article, further documents the design and construction of the WWB.

Roads to the Future has read the 1994 Hardesty and Hanover engineering report on the bridge's structural condition, at the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Design Center, and it was confirmed that this information is indeed correct.

The article is "Traffic Taking Toll on Wilson Bridge", Washington Post, Sept. 2, 1994. The article quoted the assessment results of 12 bridge engineers, in a publicly-funded study led by the New York engineering firm, Hardesty and Hanover. This group of engineers included representatives from Virginia, Maryland, D.C. and the Federal Highway Administration.

The engineers stated what I've stated before, that the bridge was opened in 1961 and designed for 75,000 vehicles per day on six lanes. It carried about 167,000 VPD in 1994 with about 17,000 VPD large trucks.

The engineering report said essentially that the bridge shakes too hard and too often, mostly because the bridge was carrying over twice the traffic it was designed to handle. The vibrations cause the bridge supports to deteriorate. Compounding the problem is the fact that maximum legal truck loads permitted on highways are significantly higher than they were when the bridge was designed.

The article doesn't mention it, but like I've said before, when the bridge was designed, planning was underway to route I-95 through the center of the District of Columbia, and long-range plans were in place to build an Outer Beltway around the Washington area, at about twice the radius of the I-495 Capital Beltway. Since neither of these highways was built, the WWB carries I-95, I-495, and bypass traffic.

Also, in 1983, funding for major widening and/or major reconstruction of the WWB did not exist, so the aforementioned redecking was performed, with the knowledge that the new deck on the existing superstructure would last about 20 years.

The engineering report concluded that without major structural upgrading, the bridge would have to be closed to trucks within 10 years (of 1994). This major structural upgrade was estimated to cost $213 million in 1994 dollars, and it did not include any additional vehicular lanes. Also, it would be necessary to close half of the roadway during the reconstruction, and that would cause about 2 years of intolerable traffic conditions. So the upshot of all this, is the fact that upgrading the pre-existing bridge to keep it adequate for existing traffic loads, would be quite expensive, would not provide any new lanes, and would cause intolerable traffic conditions during construction.

Excerpt from Post article:

"It is still safe to drive on the bridge, which meets current weight standards, the report said. But the bridge does not meet bridge design standards for the number and weight of vehicles that cross each day".

"As a result of these repetitive loads, parts of the bridge have sustained damage and deterioration", the report said.

"The most damage is to the steel support that holds up the bridge. Every time a truck crosses, the deck-supports, beams and girders underneath vibrate, causing wear on the support system".

The article has a diagram showing the conceptual design of the bridge. The substructure is comprised of long spans with transverse rows of 4 vertical concrete piers. The superstructure is comprised of 4 longitudinal continuous steel girders (each up to 12 feet deep) that rest upon the piers, with rows of transverse steel floor beams connecting the girders, and longitudinal steel stringers resting on top of the floor beams. The reinforced concrete roadway deck rests on top of the stringers and the girders. According to the engineering report, the truck-induced vibrations primarily affect the floor beams and the stringers, cumulatively causing excessive wear and tear, leading to the projected long-term deterioration crisis that needs to be addressed.

The report mentioned the possibility of building a new bridge next to or near the WWB, and routing all the truck traffic there. That way, a modest $52 million rehabilitation of the pre-existing bridge in about 2004 would suffice to keep it adequate for auto and light truck traffic. However, a new alignment would involve extensive right-of-way acquisition and major wetlands impacts, and a parallel adjacent two-way bridge would need complex approach crossover ramp designs that would not be necessary with a one-way old bridge and a one-way new bridge. So the feasibility of these two alternatives is questionable.

The engineering report conclusion that apparently laid the foundation for the current plan to build a completely new higher bridge, in the same location as the pre-existing one, is summed up in this Post quote from the engineering report assessment, "If truck traffic cannot be reassigned to a new crossing, the most cost-effective recommendation is to replace the entire structure rather than to rehabilitate it".

VDOT - Virginia Department of Transportation
MDOT SHA - Maryland Department of Transportation, Maryland State Highway Administration
DDOT - District Department of Transportation
FHWA - Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)
WWB - Woodrow Wilson Bridge
EIS - Environmental Impact Statement
FEIS - Final Environmental Impact Statement
DEIS - Draft Environmental Impact Statement
ROD - Record of Decision
HOV - High Occupancy Vehicle

Many of the external hyperlinks on this webpage were posted 8 to 10 years ago or more, and you will find that many are no longer active.

Photos by Scott Kozel unless otherwise noted.

Copyright © 1998-2016 by Scott Kozel. All rights reserved. Reproduction, reuse, or distribution without permission is prohibited.

Back to top

By Scott M. Kozel, Roads to the Future, Capital Beltway dot com

(Created 5-1998, updated 12-23-2016)