A huge celebration hailing the $2.5 billion Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project infuriated commuters Thursday who were delayed for hours as drivers slowed down to check out the commotion.
Officials blamed rubbernecking for the gridlock that spread eight miles and provided an ironic twist to a celebration of a massive decadelong effort to reduce bottlenecks at the bridge.
Drivers criticized officials for the event’s timing: 11 a.m. on a weekday.
Officials at the ceremony pretended the honks that punctuated their remarks were for joy, knowing drivers were expressing their frustration with the delays and disturbance.
Bridge officials apologized, but insisted there was no better time to commemorate a monumentalproject that has dominated the region’s transportation agenda for eight years.
“We apologize for today’s traffic, but emphasize this is commemorating something that is going to be paying dividends for years,” said John Undeland, a Wilson Bridge Project spokesman, noting routine bottlenecks at the bridge “beset and bedeviled drivers for years.
“The morning rush hour just dragged on and took a lot longer than we thought,” he said.
While officials opened the first span of the bridge in 2006, the second piece will be operating running in a few weeks, a key benchmark in the project started in 2000, Undeland said.
Drivers had reason to be furious, said Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, but he defended the program, saying officials had reason to rejoice.
“Today was a moment of agony before ecstasy,” Anderson said. “It’s appropriate that we celebrate the opening given that it’s taken a couple decades and billions of dollars … but we had truckers blowing horns and I’m sure they weren’t to say, ‘Hi, how are you.’ ”
