Make That a 10-Lane Bridge

Washington Post
Sunday, May 2, 1999; Page B08 

Yes, Virginia (and Maryland and the District), the
Coalition for a Sensible Bridge supports building a
10-lane Wilson Bridge replacement as soon as possible.

Our coalition was the successful plaintiff in the case in
which Judge Stanley Sporkin ruled that the Federal
Highway Administration violated four federal statutes in
designing a 12-lane replacement for the Wilson Bridge.
We represent 19 Virginia and Maryland civic and
citizens' associations that are fighting the feds' plan to
build the widest bridge in the world without sufficiently
factoring in economic, environmental, historic
preservation and quality-of-life concerns.

Contrary to numerous cries of alarm, federal engineering
studies show the present Wilson Bridge is not
collapsing, nor will it fall down if properly maintained
until a new bridge opens. Heavy trucks will not be
forced to detour to other bridges.

We support a 10-lane bridge for several reasons.

First, construction could start as soon as plans are ready
because a 10-lane bridge could be built for less than the
$900 million Congress appropriated last year for a new
bridge. A 12-lane bridge would cost another $1 billion,
primarily because it would force a massive expansion of
four nearby Beltway interchanges. Neither Congress nor
the states want to cough up that extra billion, and it
would be fiscally irresponsible to start the project
before it is fully financed, even though some advocates
of a 12-lane bridge have proposed doing just that. 

Second, a 10-lane bridge would more than match the
eight-lane Beltway while meeting projected future traffic
needs. The 10 lanes would represent a 67 percent
increase in carrying capacity above the present bridge's
six lanes -- more than enough to take care of the
projected 58 percent traffic increase by 2020.
Additionally, the potential for rail transit could be
incorporated into the 10-lane design.

Neither the region's atmosphere nor its existing roads
can absorb increased traffic over the next 20 years
comparable to the projected increase in Wilson Bridge
traffic. If air quality and traffic congestion are bad today,
imagine fitting five cars into the space three now fill.
Paving over urban communities will neither improve air
quality nor reduce traffic congestion. Build new roads,
and they fill up. We need to focus on sensible
alternatives to more highway concrete.

Sensible ideas include extending rail transit to new job
centers, such as Tysons Corner, and encouraging people
to live closer to where they work. Truck traffic on a new
Wilson Bridge could be reduced by shifting more freight
to rail, and the CSX Railroad has plans to do just that.

A 10-lane bridge would meet environmental and historic
preservation standards as well as have the capacity to
handle realistic future traffic needs. Not wasting $1
billion on a new bridge also would allow funding for
other highway improvements, including a wider Route
301 bridge over the Potomac that would divert interstate
traffic away from Washington.

For all these reasons, we would like to see an end to the
gridlock over the future of the Wilson Bridge and
construction of a 10-lane replacement as soon as
possible.

      -- Judy McVay and Bert Ely

         are, respectively, co-chairman and legislative chairman
         of the Coalition for a Sensible Bridge Inc. 

© Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company