Determined to Rise To the Challenge

Daily on the Wilson Bridge Project, Workers Juggle Details, Decisions

Halfway between the Virginia and Maryland shores, Jim Ruddell unleashes a chunk of tobacco from his cheek, pivots in his cowboy boots and inhales the magnitude of what surrounds him.

Directly ahead is the Wilson Bridge, flat and rusty, shaking from the cars and trucks that bounce across. Behind the project construction engineer stands its replacement -- giant, V-shaped piers rising from the depths of the Potomac River, surrounded by sky-touching cranes, steel beams and all other manner of building.

"That's why I love construction," he says, gesturing around him. "There are very few professions where you can just go out and witness the progress of your work and the legacy you've done.

"A marquee job like this is every engineer's dream. To work on something of this elegance is really the pinnacle."

This bright morning in early May is almost exactly a year from the scheduled opening of the first of two six-lane spans. After the old bridge carries the last of the millions of vehicles that have crossed its tired body, it will be torn apart and replaced by a second six-lane bridge set to open in 2008. Several Beltway interchanges near the bridge will be rebuilt by 2011, 23 years after a formal study of the project began.

At $2.43 billion, the new bridge is the second-costliest transportation project in the nation. More than $1 million worth of work is completed each day. It has been under construction for five years, and more than 1,000 people are putting it together.

This is their story, a tale of five men and women -- Ruddell, a traffic engineer, an environmentalist, a pile driver and a Mr. Everything -- and a week in the life of building a bridge designed to connect the Washington region for the next three-quarters of a century.

Monday

The day has not begun well for Ruddell. A key employee walked into his office at 7:55 a.m., five minutes before a staff meeting, to say he was quitting, effective in two weeks. The worker handles 30,000 "submittals" -- plans submitted by contractors -- and Ruddell has no one else who can do the job.

If the submittals aren't properly processed, work stops. "We'll have to pull someone and force-feed them," Ruddell says.

Ruddell is where he spends most of his time, in a glorified trailer park off Eisenhower Avenue, where he juggles the demands of 32 major contracts and 1,200 tasks that require government permits.

After the meeting, Ruddell is out of his office, making one of his routine drives through the project.

He scurries under a screed machine, which sets and smooths concrete, to check on a pour that will one day be the outer loop. Consistency looks good. Moisture looks good. Concrete looks good.