Woodrow Wilson Bridge now open to pedestrians, bicyclists

Includes room for transit

Steve Hawley, Jul 06, 09.

The I-95/Woodrow Wilson Bridge adjacent to Washington, DC now includes a 12-foot pedestrian and bike lane with room for a transit corridor in the future, according to Transportation for America (T4America). The opening ceremonies were held in early June, drawing hundreds of bicyclists.

The bridge was originally built in 1961, and serious renovation efforts began in the 1990s. T4America says:

Looking at a map of the Metrorail public transportation system, one can see that only a few miles separate the end of the green line in Maryland and the yellow and blue lines in Virginia. There was no active work to connect the two lines, but a handful of people in the planning process wondered about dedicating some space on the bridge for a future, useful Metro connection.

Parris Glendening, Governor of Maryland from 1995-2003, said that planning for a future transit connection was just common sense.

“Those stations are just a few miles apart as the crow flies, but no one in Maryland who has a choice is going to ride all the way up into DC to switch trains and ride all the way back out to Virginia — and end up only a few miles from where they started,” he said.

Gov. Glendening said they discovered that adding lanes for rail transit was more complex than simply adding more space. “Not only did we have to add space, but we had to account for the additional weight of heavy rail cars and the strong vibrations trains produce that cars do not,” he said.

Glendening said that the renovations were quite expensive initially, but that the bridge would save money in the long run. Many of his opponents accused him of “threatening commerce in the region and guaranteeing gridlock” by pursuing the project.

Ultimately, Glendening concluded, “We can’t simply add more lanes and build more interstates and expect to alleviate congestion and improve mobility in the region. We have to think outside the box and do something other than what got us into this traffic mess in the first place. Investing our transportation money into projects that can give people better transportation choices is a good place to start. And the Wilson Bridge is a great example of doing it right.”

(Photo credit: M.V. Jantzen)