Mark your calendars and let the countdown begin — Thursday is the day that the new span of the Wilson Bridge will be dedicated. The ceremonies will include the perfunctory ribbon-cutting, as well as several other interesting elements. If you don’t think this is a big deal, then look at the list of notable participants: Norman Mineta, the U.S. secretary of transportation; the governors of Maryland and Virginia; D.C. Mayor Tony Williams; transportation officials of all three major jurisdictions and so on. There will be a flyover by the Blue Angels and the first car to drive over the bridge will be Woodrow Wilson’s 1923 Rolls-Royce. This is a big deal. Butthe curious thing is that there will be a ceremonial handshake at the middle of the bridge in a so-called “Uniting the States.” I’m not sure that this is what this bridge, a key link to Interstate 95, is all about. This isn’t really the driving of the gold stake for the finish of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads in 1869, but let’s just go with it. The opening of the first span of the bridge has been long awaited, and this project has gone off better than I think anyone had a right to expect. Congratulations to all involved.
How interstates are classified
Since this is the 50th anniversary of the launch of President Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System, we’ve been celebrating (in a low-budget way) with some good old-fashioned interstate trivia. The question has been asked time and again how Hawaii can have “interstate highways” and how the mile-and-a-half stretch of I-370 in Montgomery County can be considered an “interstate.”
The answer is that any highway built under the auspices of the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 or funded by the federal government can be called an interstate highway, even if it doesn’t cross state lines. In fact, there are many local routes that lie entirely within a single state funded by the act.
Hawaii actually has FOUR interstates — H1, H2 and H3 — which connect important military facilities on the island of Oahu, and then “the secret interstate,” H-201, which is 4.1 miles long and runs from H-1 near Aiea to H-1 entering urban Honolulu. There are several other significant notes about these highways: H-3 is the most expensive interstate ever built, costing more than $100 million for each of its 15 miles. Also, the numbering system we explained the other day doesn’t apply in Hawaii either. In the national freeway system, even numbers designate highways which are primarily east-west routes, and odd numbers are given to highways which are primarilynorth-south. All Hawaii interstates run counter to this rule.
For many of us, the last bit of frustration getting to Ocean City is the bridge that takes Route 50 across the Sinepuxent Bay: The backups there can be terrible. On June 1 and 2 at the convention center, the state is going to start a public hearing process on alternatives to the bridge.
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