Monday, May 15, 2006
Md./Va.: Commute's New Dawn
Commute's New Dawn
The Path to New Wilson Span, and What Lies Ahead
By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 14, 2006; C01
About 11 a.m. Thursday, a new drawbridge half as heavy as the Eiffel Tower will be lowered over the Potomac River and the governors of Virginia and Maryland will walk from opposite shores to shake hands, signaling a new era for hundreds of thousands of commuters.
The transformation will be brought on by the opening next month of the first of two spans of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge, a muscular hunk of 25,000 tons of concrete and more than 30,000 tons of steel nearly two difficult decades in the making that promises to ease drives across the area -- at least for a while.
In a politically complex region that rarely agrees on how to solve its severe traffic problems, the bridge construction stands out as a success story. When the entire project is completed, Virginia and Maryland leaders will have joined hands to refashion 12 percent of the Capital Beltway and unclog the area's worst bottleneck.
The Path to New Wilson Span, and What Lies Ahead
By Steven Ginsberg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 14, 2006; C01
About 11 a.m. Thursday, a new drawbridge half as heavy as the Eiffel Tower will be lowered over the Potomac River and the governors of Virginia and Maryland will walk from opposite shores to shake hands, signaling a new era for hundreds of thousands of commuters.
The transformation will be brought on by the opening next month of the first of two spans of the new Woodrow Wilson Bridge, a muscular hunk of 25,000 tons of concrete and more than 30,000 tons of steel nearly two difficult decades in the making that promises to ease drives across the area -- at least for a while.
In a politically complex region that rarely agrees on how to solve its severe traffic problems, the bridge construction stands out as a success story. When the entire project is completed, Virginia and Maryland leaders will have joined hands to refashion 12 percent of the Capital Beltway and unclog the area's worst bottleneck.
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