Decades of frustration and delays are scheduled to end this weekend with the removal of what traffic planners describe as one of the biggest bottlenecks on the East Coast.
Ninety-nine percent of the work on the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project will be completed with traffic moving on all 10 lanes of the twin, 1.1-mile spans by Monday morning’s rush hour, officials said Thursday.
Project officials called the news “an early holiday gift to the region.”
“This couldn’t have been done without the cooperation and patience of the 200,000 motorists who use that facility every day and the neighboring communities,” said bridge project spokesman John Undeland.
Motoring across the Potomac on the bridge between Maryland and Virginia became a driving nightmare shortly after the original bridge was built in 1961 to serve about 75,000 vehicles daily.
Five years later, 195,000 vehicles a day were crossing the bridge — the midpoint of Interstate 95.
So aggravating and notorious were the backups that in August 2006 a contest was held to pick a motorist to help blow up the old span.
A panel of judges picked Dan Ruefly, 56, of Accokeek, who recounted the story of how he shattered his hip in a 1996 bridge crash and had to wait 30 minutes in an ambulance for the drawbridge to close and the bridge to reopen.
“Now you come across in the afternoon and it’s like driving across on a Sunday morning,” he said Thursday. “They did a heck of a good job keeping the bridge open and keeping the traffic going.”
Besides having twin drawbridges that are 20 feet higher, the new bridge also has shoulders for emergency stops and enough lanes to accommodate at least 300,000 vehicles daily — traffic that flows onto the spans from the eight-lane Capital Beltway and three other highways.
The finishing touches this weekend will be the addition of two lanes along the Beltway’s Inner Loop for motorists going into Virginia. However, no progress is made on the bridge without causing major backups — and this weekend will be no exception.
Road crews paving and re-striping the lanes will limit Beltway traffic to one lane from the Branch Avenue exit in Maryland to about Telegraph Road in Virginia — roughly nine miles. Delays could be as long as three hours, so motorists are being urged to use alternate routes.
“That’s a recipe for gridlock, so we’re urging people to stay away,” Mr. Undeland said.
The work begins at 9 p.m. Friday and is scheduled to end at noon Sunday. However, the rain and snow forecast for this weekend could create problems and postpone work until next weekend.
Officials said work on connecting roads — including Virginia Route 1 and Telegraph Road — will not be completed until 2013.
“This will be a major relief in terms of one of the worst areas of gridlock on the East Coast,” said John B. Townsend III, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic.
The $2.5 billion public project is considered among the biggest in U.S. history, although some much bigger projects are planned. The proposed SR 520 bridge project in Washington state is expected to cost $4.56 billion to $6.67 billion. And replacing the eastern span of the San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge will likely cost more than $6.2 billion.
The biggest project is considered to be the $14.6 billion Central Artery/Tunnel Project in Boston, know as the Big Dig.
The project included an underground expressway beneath an outdated highway, two bridges across the Charles River and an extension of the Massachusetts Turnpike. The project was mired in construction mistakes, cost overruns and charges of fraud against contractors.
Construction on the new Wilson Bridge began in October 2000.
The first of the new spans began handling two-way traffic in 2006. The entire, 7.5 mile project is now about 85 percent complete. The bridge itself is only 1.1 miles long, but the project included portions of the Beltway.
The 10-lane bridge was designed for 12 lanes. Mr. Undeland said the two remaining lanes will function as breakdown lanes until regional leaders decide whether to use them as traffic lanes or for mass transit.
Lon Anderson, of AAA Mid-Atlantic, called the bridge a “huge asset” to the region and said the hidden value of a new one is the economic impact because, in part, workers will stay in the area or continue to arrive and help the economy.
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