By Eric M. Weiss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 30, 2008

If your travel plans will take you anywhere near the Woodrow Wilson Bridge this weekend, you might want to rethink them. Officials are predicting massive delays as traffic heading from Maryland into Virginia is shifted onto the new second span of the bridge.

The work is scheduled to begin at 9 tonight and finish by 1 p.m. Sunday. Workers need to pave and stripe connections to the new bridge on both sides of the Potomac River.

John Undeland, spokesman for the bridge project, said drivers should avoid the area throughout the weekend, particularly between noon and 6 p.m. tomorrow, when weekend traffic is generally heaviest and the Capital Beltway's inner loop will be down to a single lane.

Two years ago, officials sounded similar warnings when they rerouted traffic onto the first new span. And despite a media and advertising campaign that diverted as much as 84 percent of normal weekend traffic away from the bridge, there were still delays of up to 90 minutes.

"With a single lane, there is no margin for error," Undeland said.

The work that starts tonight will reduce the Beltway's inner loop in Maryland to a single lane and close the ramp from Interstate 295 to the inner loop, detouring traffic around the construction work. Traffic on ramps between National Harbor and Route 210 will be detoured, and in Virginia, traffic on ramps from the inner loop to Route 1 will be detoured to Telegraph Road.

Tomorrow evening, all inner loop traffic will be stopped for about 15 minutes as workers open a single lane across the new span. Ramps to National Harbor and Route 1 will then reopen.

Workers hope to reopen the ramp from Interstate 295 to the inner loop by noon Sunday, and three lanes of the inner loop will use the new span.

Weather-related delays could push work later into Sunday, but project officials say that under no circumstances will any lanes or ramps remain closed for Monday morning's rush.

The switchover won't mean the end of the bottleneck that the bridge has represented for decades. After this weekend's work, there will still be only three lanes on each of the two spans, or a total of six lanes -- the same number as on the old bridge.

Commuter relief won't come until late fall, when express/through lanes -- two on each span -- open to traffic.

The final configuration, which separates long-distance traffic heading up and down the East Coast from local commuter traffic, is expected to dramatically improve the Potomac crossing.

Project officials said that about 1,500 tons of asphalt will be laid over the next week, weather permitting, which will smooth commutes in both directions over both spans. In Virginia, new ramps to Route 1 will open, as will Alexandria's Church Street exit, which has been closed for years.

"We'll be working out some of the kinks in the road system so there will be a straight shot across both spans," Undeland said.

Undeland said there will be no hoopla christening traffic over the new span this weekend. Organizers staged an elaborate dedication ceremony for the second span May 15, and it caused miles of rubbernecking delays and angered commuters. Frustrated truckers passing the ceremony honked their horns, interrupting the speeches of U.S. Transportation Secretary Mary Peters, Virginia Gov. Timothy M. Kaine (D) and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley (D).

U.S. Rep. James P. Moran Jr. (D-Va.), who said he boycotted the event, said organizers should have expected rubbernecking.

The criticism was rare for the massive $2.5 billion project, which has been built largely on time and on budget, and managers have won applause and awards for keeping traffic flowing as well as it has been during construction.