When the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge was to be built, a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief. After all, this new bridge would have at least four lanes in each direction, matching the number of lanes on the Beltway and in theory eliminating one of the major bottlenecks on the interstate.
I must admit that I, too, thought that the new Wilson Bridge would be delay-free once the number of lanes met or exceeded those leading up to it on the Beltway. That’s why I’ve been so surprised over the past year or so when listening to the traffic reports for the afternoon rush hours and more often than not hear about delays on the outer loop beginning near Eisenhower Avenue or before Route 1. That’s where the delays began before the new bridge was built. At the same time, I didn’t hear from a lot of readers who drive across the bridge until recently. Many of them are frustrated with the delays even though they acknowledge that the bridge wasn’t rebuilt just to relieve congestion but because the old one was falling apart.
This e-mail from Dan may touch at the reason for the backups even if it doesn’t answer the questions that go with it: “Here is the problem: The bridge causes a backup even when there is no traffic. Why? Because the trucks can make the grade and drive slower, creating a bottleneck. In traffic, that impact is multiplied.
“Is this due to the stupid requirement to make it a drawbridge?”
Actually, the height of the bridge is part of the design to reduce the number of times that the bridge has to be raised to allow ships to pass underneath. The new spans are roughly 20 feet higher than the old spans. If it were lower, the drawspan would have to open every time a big sailboat or a Navy ship came through. That’s not the case anymore, although the drawspan is still needed on occasion. According to the Federal Highway Administration, the number of drawspan openings when the new bridge is completely finished will go from about 260 a year to 65.
The other issue is that the “ramp ups” on the approaches to the bridge had to be relatively short to minimize the environmental impact on each of the shorelines. Ideally, the ramps onto the bridge would have started near St. Barnabas Road on the Maryland side and well before Telegraph Road on the Virginia side. That would have also driven up the cost. The inner loop space is scheduled to be completed late next spring.
