It will get worse before it gets better. That was the warning yesterday to D.C., Virginia and Maryland commuters — as well as tourists just passing through — who use the Woodrow Wilson Bridge along Interstate 95.
But officials expressed confidence that commuters could avoid some problems if they find alternate routes or switch to mass transit.
“Major highway construction causes commutes to worsen before they improve,” said Robert D. Douglass, the Maryland State Highway Administration’s project manager.
Although dredging for the bridge began in October 2000 and construction has been under way since 2001, much of the work has not affected the existing roadway. That is expected to change within the next few weeks.
“I see this being one big mess,” said Redella S. “Del” Pepper, vice mayor of Alexandria.
She praised a demonstration project offering 1,000 commuters $50 a month for a year to use mass transit as a “positive step.” If the program proves successful, it could be expanded, officials said.
The 42-year-old Wilson Bridge drawspan links Alexandria with Oxon Hill along the East Coast’s major north-south highway. A pair of higher drawbridges will be built, but that also means replacing four interchanges.
The first new bridge is scheduled for completion in 2006. That will be followed by the demolition of the existing bridge and completion of the second span in 2008. The entire 7.5-mile, $2.56 billion project will be completed in 2012.
“There are not alternatives to the bridge. There’s one crossing,” said Miss Douglass.
The existing span handles about 200,000 vehicles each day, or nearly three times the 75,000 for which it was designed. In addition to being part of the Capital Beltway, it also is one of three Washington-area Potomac River crossings for commercial traffic using I-95.
Officials also are urging long-haul truckers and bus operators to bypass the construction. U.S. 301 and the American Legion Bridge make that possible.
For local commuters, “the 14th Street Bridge and the American Legion Bridge are not viable alternatives,” said Thomas F. Farley, an administrator for the Virginia Department of Transportation.
A telephone survey of 806 bridge commuters living in four Southern Maryland and three Northern Virginia counties indicated that more than 64 percent face commutes of 40 minutes or longer. About one-third of the respondents to the December poll said stepped-up construction will add at least 20 minutes to their commutes.
“On a good day, the bridge doesn’t move very well; on a bad day, it doesn’t move,” said Lon Anderson, spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.
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