Long Bridge CAG Meeting #1 Presentation (March 5, 2025)   3/5/2025

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Good afternoon.

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Again, welcome to the Long Bridge Project Community Advisory Group meeting.

Good afternoon, my name is Inora Moss and I am with Tina Boyd and Associates, a community engagement and communications firm in Washington, DC.

My team and I are providing additional outreach and engagement support for the Long Bridge Project.

The purpose of this afternoon's meeting is to create a space where project updates can be shared transparently and community voices can be heard.

Please note that this meeting is being recorded to accurately capture your comments and your concerns.

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I will now turn the presentation over to Jerrica Goodman to begin the presentation.

Thank you, Anora.

And again, welcome to the Long Bridge Project's first community advisory group meeting.

Again, my name is Jerrica Gittman.

I'm the Director of External Affairs and Communications at the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

We are responsible for implementing a host of projects, including the Long Bridge Project.

Hello, I am Meredith Judy.

I am the Community Affairs Manager with Virginia Passenger Rail Authority focused on Northern Virginia and DC.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Naomi Klein.

Charlene Cleveland is the Senior Director for the Long Bridge Project.

Ian.

Hi, thank you.

Thank you, team.

So today we will give you a brief introduction to the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority and talk to you a little bit about the Long Bridge project and give you more information about your role as a member of our community advisory group.

So who's the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority?

We were created in the year 2020 by the Virginia General Assembly.

We're responsible for expanding and promoting passenger and commuter rail in the Commonwealth of Virginia and beyond.

We also manage our state-sponsored Amtrak Virginia routes, which connect Virginia to the Northeast Corridor.

And we are implementing a really robust capital program, which includes the Long Bridge project and a host of other projects in our portfolio, which we'll see on the map that Naomi will show you all.

Like I said, we manage Virginia's passenger rail network,

which includes four state-supported Amtrak routes with eight daily round trips to Roanoke, Richmond, and Newport News in Norfolk.

It also includes five Amtrak long-distance routes that go through our state, one North Carolina state-supported round trip, and two Virginia Railway Express commuter routes that include 16 daily round trips to Manassas,

line, and the Fredericksburg line.

So we have a very robust rail network in Virginia, which will only grow after we complete the Transforming Rail program.

which the Long Bridge Project is a critical component of.

The VPRA Capital Program includes 11 projects,

and the DC to Richmond area that will unlock new passenger rail service.

You can see these projects, like I said, Long Bridge is a critical inch plan in that creating a new two-track railroad bridge over the Potomac, but also, as you'll see, lots of other rail bridges in DC and also connecting in Virginia and Arlington.

It'll add two new Amtrak round trips and three new VRE round trips and also includes the addition of late night and weekend service and also adding future capacity that will provide an additional three new round trips for Amtrak and two new additional VRE round trips.

So these Long Bridge, while a very, very important project is

One piece of a very, very complex infrastructure program that will significantly expand passenger and commuter service for not just Virginians, but anyone traveling up and down the Northeast and Southeast.

So these projects will unlock a tremendous amount of service.

Thank you, Jerica, and good afternoon.

Thank you all for joining us.

So what you're looking at right now is an area map of the project area, as if you were essentially in a plane looking down from above.

So the project is the Purple Line and it begins, if you're looking on the left hand of the side, on the left side of the screen, in Arlington by the Long Bridge Aquatic Center and Long Bridge Park.

We then go over across the Potomac River through East Potomac Park over I-395, over the Washington Channel, through Southwest near the Maryland Avenue Overbuild, so the Salamander or formerly Mandarin Oriental Hotel, and it ends at what is called L.E.

Interlocking, which is really just a railroad term

That talks about where all of the tracks come together and the trains are able to move around within the track.

So, Ellie Interlocking is just south of L'Enfant Station.

And so those are the boundaries for the Long Bridge project.

Even though it's called the Long Bridge, it's actually a series of bridges and not just one bridge alone, the largest bridge being the bridge across the Potomac, the two track rail bridge across the Potomac River.

But additionally, we've got a series of land bridges that span across

I-395, Ohio Drive, George Washington Memorial Parkway, Main Avenue.

In addition, as part of this project for mitigation to impacts to parklands, we are building a separated bicycle and pedestrian bridge across the Potomac River.

and so just to go back to the big picture, the purpose of this project is really that to expand rail capacity and not just for the district or for Virginia, but really for all of the East Coast.

So currently we've got the existing Long Bridge, which is a two track rail bridge that's owned by CSX and all traffic, all rail traffic by Amtrak, VRE,

and freight rail from CSX have to go across that two track bridge.

Now, for those of you who have ever taken the train from DC up to New York, that is a four track corridor.

And so south in Alexandria, there is a three track corridor.

And so really this bridge across the Potomac River is the pinch point where it narrows down to only two tracks that all of these different modes have to share.

And in studying this,

which had started all the way back in 2011, which we'll get into some of the history of the project.

What we saw was that the bridge was really at capacity.

And so if we wanted to run more trains, for example, VRE nighttime or weekend service, we would really have to be able to expand that.

And so what this project is doing is building a new two-track rail bridge next to the existing two-track rail bridge.

What that will allow us to do is really separate freight rail from passenger rail, which will unlock additional service, allowing for more passenger rail trains to travel independently of the freight.

The existing Long Bridge will continue to be owned by CSX.

The new rail bridge will be owned by VPRA or the state of Virginia.

and the Bicycle Pedestrian Bridge across the Potomac River will be owned by the district, will be constructed by us as part of this project but eventually owned by the District of Columbia.

So you can go to the next slide.

These are just some facts about the Long Bridge Project and what you'll see is there are a lot of bridges going across the Potomac River

And you'll see them labeled by color.

So on the far left with the orange label is the 14th Street Highway Bridge.

And then there's the Wamata Yellow Line Bridge labeled in yellow.

And then this is a rendering of what the project is going to build.

So you'll see in green is the new bicycle pedestrian bridge that we will be building as mitigation for the project.

and then with the purple label, the new two-track Long Bridge, and then on the far right, the existing Long Bridge that will continue to be owned by CSX.

And so you can see some facts, two new tracks, three rail operators, VRE, Amtrak, and CSX, five new rail bridges, and two new pedestrian bridges.

So we can go to the next slide.

Thank you.

So while it is one project for the purposes of construction, just due to the size and complexity of the project, it is split into two packages, a north package and a south package.

So the south package handles everything in Virginia on the Arlington side and then

and then the largest bridge that goes across the Potomac River and the Bicycle Pedestrian Bridge.

So the south package ends basically at the abutment of the bridge at Ohio Drive near the river and East Potomac Park.

And from there, the north package picks up everything within the district.

So everything in East Potomac Park,

across the Washington Channel and up to LE Interlocking.

The south package is Design Build and that design builder came on board earlier this year about a month ago.

And the north package is what we call Progressive Design Build and they came on board about a year ago and they are progressing their design from 60% to a final design.

This just shows you that this project has been a very long time in the making.

So the environmental part of the project was led by the district, by the District Department of Transportation, beginning in 2011 through a series of different FRA grants.

And that environmental process concluded in 2020.

when the Federal Railroad Administration issued what's called an Environmental Impact Statement and Record of Decision.

And essentially what that did was capture what any of the impacts were to environmental or cultural resources and then lay out what the mitigations or commitments of the project would be to address any of those impacts.

Once that environmental process concluded, then DC handed the project over to Virginia

to complete design and construction.

And so where we are right now is in that very last box, 2023 to 2030, which is final design and construction.

And so, as you saw in the previous slide, we have design builders on board, we are finishing design, working on obtaining permits, acquiring the land that's needed, and then

very shortly, not too shortly, not in a month or so, but over the next five years between now and 2030, we'll be constructing the project.

We have a lot of stakeholders on this project.

As you saw from the map, this is an interjurisdictional project.

And then additionally, there's a lot of the project that are controlled by the federal government.

So first we have our

First we have our rail operators, Amtrak, VRE, and CSX.

We also have various district entities that we're working with, DDOT, Demped, DOB, DC Office of Planning.

Then we have federal entities, so USACE, the National Park Service, Commission of Fine Arts, NCPC.

I'll try not to name everything on this slide, but we also have private businesses and then also Virginia government entities.

So that's all to say

that there's a lot of oversight and there's a lot of coordination.

So this project has a lot of added value for the district.

When we look at all the improvements that are being added, the total value is estimated to be around 300 million dollars.

One of the biggest improvements is the new bicycle pedestrian bridge over the Potomac River.

The current connection between Arlington and the district over the Potomac River is connected to the 14th Street Bridge.

It's a seven and a half foot wide travel space, and it's not as user friendly, nearly as user friendly as what we are going to be building.

But additionally, we're adding safety and security features like fencing, lighting.

We're updating crash walls.

We're improving a lot of vertical and horizontal clearances around I-395 rail bridge, Main Avenue rail bridge, and improving those clearances helps to prevent crashes from trucks going under low clearance bridges and improved signals, improved sidewalks, and improved assets that are not currently ADA compliant.

So this gives you a timeline of where we've been and where we are going.

So the teal color for 2022 and 2023, that was our preliminary engineering phase.

That's when we took over the project from DDOT and we were advancing from a 15% design, which is essentially a concept, to a more robust 30% design.

and then and now we are in final design where you can see in the more solid blue color and then starting about right about now we're entering into early works construction which is not full construction but are activities that we can do now that will support full construction by the end of this year we will have completed final design for the this is for the north package

and then we'll move into construction.

So this just shows you that we are putting a lot in a very small space, as you probably saw from some of the renderings that we've shown so far.

We've got the existing Yellow Line Wamata Bridge and then we've got the bike pedestrian bridge that will be 16 feet wide.

and also that ramps down to the Mount Vernon Trail.

We've got the new two-track railroad bridge and the existing two-track Long Bridge.

So additionally, you need space between each of those bridges in order to be able to get equipment in to maintain them and also for security reasons.

So this just shows you a picture of the existing bridge on top and then on the bottom it shows you the existing Long Bridge on the left and our proposed new two-track bridge on the right.

And these design elements have all been reviewed by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts.

And then on the left you see a map that has

Some of the same labels that we had shown you previously, just to help orient.

I will add that the new bicycle pedestrian bridge connects to a trail that brings you to Long Bridge Park and the Long Bridge Aquatic Center in Arlington.

It also includes a connection to the Mount Vernon Trail in Arlington.

And then in the district, it brings you to East Potomac Park to a bike lane on Ohio Drive.

This is a rendering that shows you the existing Main Avenue SW Rail Bridge, which is on top and then the proposed new bridge on the bottom.

Once the project crosses over I-395, the amount of available right-of-way that we have to construct the project becomes very narrow, so much that we have to

where Main Avenue is, we have to take down the existing two tracks and reconstruct all four tracks.

So the existing bridge that you see on top will not exist in the final condition and instead there will be a brand new four-track rail bridge and that's what we're showing on the bottom.

This image shows you that in constructing the project, we are going to improve the sidewalk with a long main avenue underneath the rail bridge.

That is because we're able to move on the abutment, which is just the concrete wall.

We're able to move that back, which will allow for us to widen the sidewalk.

When you're looking at that rendering on the left,

The orange is the existing sidewalk.

You can see where it gets very narrow.

And the purple is going to be that new wider sidewalk.

And this is a great benefit because this sidewalk is actually part of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail.

And so this is going to give a lot more space for pedestrians and cyclists to be able to connect to the tidal basin.

This just shows you some renderings of the bicycle pedestrian bridge, the visual on top.

shows you the pedestrian bridge in between the Wamata Yellow Line Bridge and the new two-track bridge.

You can see the ramp down to the Mount Vernon Trail and then also the connection point to the Long Bridge Aquatic Center.

The image below that is a rendering of what the view will be from being on the bridge.

The bridge will be 16 feet wide and only for pedestrian and cyclists.

And then on the right hand side, that's that existing connection that I have mentioned previously.

That's only about seven and a half feet wide.

And this just shows you the existing bicycle network.

So the green lines that you see are the existing network.

The blue dash lines are bike friendly routes.

And then the yellow is that connection that we'll be adding that's been part of the long range bike plan.

This shows another rendering of the connection at Long Bridge Park.

So you can see that the bike pedestrian bridge comes down and connects directly into the Long Bridge Park Trail.

And then this is an image of where the bicycle pedestrian bridge connects to the Mount Vernon Trail.

and there will be both a 16 foot wide ramp down and then additionally a set of stairs.

What that will do is help to separate cyclists who might be going at faster speeds than pedestrians and also allow a quicker connection point for pedestrians to be able to use the staircase.

So they're not having to walk up this longer ramp, but we're still providing ADA accessibility at the same time.

There is a project that MPS is working on now where they will be widening the Mount Vernon Trail at this location from 8 feet to 11 feet.

And this is the connection in the district in East Potomac Park at Ohio Drive.

So it will connect straight in and then you can see in the roadway there is a bicycle lane that bikes will be able to connect into.

And this is East Potomac Park, a very popular cyclist location.

I'm not going to read everything in this slide, but the concept of this slide is that we have a lot of stakeholders in this area and in Southwest DC.

The rail goes under the Maryland Avenue overbuild.

We've been coordinating directly with the portal's owners, with the hotel, which is the Salamander, previously the Mandarin, and the Washington Marina.

Those are some of the private businesses.

that will have impacts due to the projects.

We've been coordinating with them directly.

We also make sure to stay in communication with the Wharf.

We have been going through the approvals process with the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts on the design and aesthetic decisions for the project.

And we work very closely with DDOT.

Okay, so the purpose of that, can you go back to that slide?

Sorry, I didn't cover the second part.

So this slide is to introduce the fact that there is a pedestrian bridge that crosses Main Avenue and this project, because we are widening the rail bridge over Main Avenue from two tracks to four tracks, that pedestrian bridge is directly in the path

of where the new four-track rail bridge will have to go.

And so we will need to remove that existing pedestrian bridge in order to build the new rail bridge.

And then we have a concept that you will see where we will be replacing, we intend

to replace that bridge.

That bridge is privately owned by the businesses that are located on the Maryland Avenue overbuild known as the PPIA.

I can go to the next slide.

Thank you.

So this just shows you that bridge in blue is the Main Avenue pedestrian bridge.

It was previously actually a rail bridge that was a spur to a rail yard that's no longer in existence because now it is the Maryland Avenue overbuild.

And it was converted as part of the development of the Maryland Avenue overbuild into a pedestrian bridge.

And so you can see it from an aerial view on the left and then on the right, that's what it looks like from being on the bridge.

And that bridge takes you from the Maryland Avenue overbuild down to the sidewalk by the Washington Marina on Main Avenue and is used most often during Cherry Blossom Festival as a way to access the Tidal Basin.

So this is a rendering of what the new bridge will look like.

Again, we have to take down the existing bridge.

And so this is the proposed new bridge.

One great improvement is that the current Main Avenue pedestrian bridge is not ADA accessible.

There's a staircase that brings you down to the sidewalk on Main Avenue.

And so in this concept, as you can see, there is still a staircase, but there's also an ADA accessible ramp.

And these are just two other views of that proposed new Main Avenue pedestrian bridge.

And you can see where the four tracks are, which is why we have to remove the existing bridge.

And this is a view from on the new bridge.

So this just gets into a little bit of what is happening now.

Ian, do you want to jump in on this or do you want me to keep going?

As we mentioned, we're doing some early works activities.

These are smaller activities that we can do in preparation for full construction of the project.

So we've been doing some archaeological testing, essentially doing soil cores to see what the likelihood is of finding any artifacts.

We, in doing some test pile driving, which helps to inform the design of the piles that will go in the water and support the bridge structure itself, we've been monitoring vibration.

Doing some borings in the river and test piles and then some minor tree and brush clearing just to be able to access different locations for this early work.

And we've been working very closely with DDOT on our maintenance of traffic plans.

And while I know we're not going to get into that in detail today, I think the ideas in the next meeting that we will be able to bring some of those details to a larger audience, but we are coordinating very closely with DDOT on those plans.

And I think I'm turning it over to Meredith now.

So thank you all for your time and hopefully I didn't speak too fast.

Yeah, that's great.

Thank you, Naomi.

That was a terrific overview.

I'm Meredith Judy.

As I said, I'm the Community Affairs Manager in Northern Virginia and D.C. for VPRA.

And I'm going to just share a brief update so that we have time for questions.

But I want to briefly let you know about the outreach that we are doing to businesses and to residents in the area.

A key priority for Virginia Passenger Rail Authority is engaging small and diverse businesses.

That is throughout Virginia and in DC, all the areas where our projects impact the community.

In DC, we're working with the Deputy Mayor's Office for Planning and Economic Development on this particular topic.

We are organizing a Meet the Prime event soon where we will invite small and diverse businesses to attend to learn about our projects and contracting opportunities.

We want to ensure equal opportunity for small and diverse businesses to contract and subcontract on our projects.

We are also working with our larger big contractors to subcontract with small and diverse businesses, particularly in DC and Virginia.

And we are tracking all this information as we go along.

Next slide.

As far as community and stakeholder engagement, we've been doing a tremendous amount of outreach over the last few years.

We've been meeting and presenting regularly with the ANC 6D and providing briefings to commissioners.

Those have been periodic updates and moving forward, we will be attending every single ANC meeting, not necessarily to present, but to always be present in case questions come up.

We have attended pop-up events and hosted our own pop-up events at the Southwest Duck Pond, at the Southwest Farmers Market, at Hancock Park near L'Enfant Station.

We've been flyering and knocking on doors in the boating community and at the wharf, making sure everyone's aware of what's upcoming.

And we've attended Bike to Work Day and Southwest bid community events.

We've also held two public virtual meetings.

We held our groundbreaking for the project in October.

This was a very exciting event.

We had a lot of state level and federal level elected officials.

Pete Buttigieg, the secretary of transportation at the time, was there and it was a chance to celebrate the tremendous economic impact that this project will have in D.C. and Virginia and also the

transformative aspects of this project on the transportation network for rail, pedestrians, and bicyclists.

Moving forward, we plan to continue to keep the community highly informed.

We plan to continue to be highly responsive.

That's a high value for us.

We have established a project hotline, which includes both an email and a phone number for people to call at any time to make inquiries.

And we are committed to responding quickly to those inquiries.

We will be releasing our second digital newsletter at the end of this month.

We have a variety of fact sheets and display boards that we take out to communities and we have online.

We've started issuing

traffic and pedestrian and bicycle advisories, and we will soon do the same for boating, the boating community as we have, as we create disruptions in the community.

We'll also be using signage on the ground and we'll be using our multimedia virtual outreach methods.

We know we're going to create disruptions in the community, but our commitment is to provide fair warning when those are coming and to minimize those disruptions as much as possible.

Upcoming, our outreach methods will include this community advisory group, which I'll speak more about in a minute.

We have some tabling and outreach events upcoming at Bike to Work Day and Out to Lunch, which is an event in Hancock Park hosted by the Southwest BID.

We'll also be presenting to the AMC.

We'll be hosting a business community meeting and a public meeting.

Those dates will be released shortly.

For the Community Advisory Group, we are so grateful that you are here today.

We see this as a central key element of our community outreach as we move into the construction phase.

You, those of you here on the call, you live and you work in Southwest DC and in the community that we are working in, and so

What we would like to do is to meet with you on a quarterly basis, provide information about the project, the latest information, the latest potential impacts, ask you to bring that out to your community, hear any questions and concerns that exist in your community, bring those back to us.

We think this is going to be one of the most effective ways that we have to stay in touch with the needs.

of the people who will be impacted by the construction of this project.

We extended invitations to 43 organizations, including residents, representatives of resident organizations, business owners, property managers, boaters, special interest groups like pedestrian and bicycle groups, TC agencies, and elected officials.

We know that over time that group will self-select down to a smaller core and that's fine, but we hope that we can have some consistency as we move forward with folks that are participating that you so that you can continue to be extremely knowledgeable about our project.

and continue to be a key source of information in your community and for us to understand what's happening out on the ground.

We plan to hold quarterly virtual meetings more often if we need to.

They'll primarily be virtual, but we will also offer some sidewalks and tours at strategic times in the project.

Ways to stay connected.

The Long Bridge Project website will continue to be a key source of information.

As I mentioned, we have an email hotline info at longbridgeproject.com and we have a contact us hotline phone number specifically for Long Bridge, which is 2027691808.

And now I will let believe that Patrice is going to manage the Q&A session for us.

I know we have some questions in the chat and some hands raised.

Thank you, Meredith.

We'll now open up the meeting for our Q&A session.

For those that are viewing our presentation, please use the chat or you can raise your hand.

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Thank you, Anora, and thank you so much for that next step.

We do have a question that was in the chat.

We'll ask that question first, and I think, Naomi, you'll be able to answer this.

That's a great question.

And as of right now, we don't have a plan to have any kind of like physical or marking separation.

The bridge is 16 feet wide.

And so with that large width, it gives the ability for people who are going slower to be on the right and people who are passing to pass on the left without there really being any conflicts.

So as of right now and based on those standards with it being a 16-foot width, there are not plans.

That doesn't mean, you know, once it is open and it's being used, if people find that, you know, that is something that needs to be addressed, I can say like it's not a big lift to put markings.

Thank you for that.

The next question, we look like we have a hand raised.

I don't want to mispronounce your name.

I'm Karthik Balasubramanian.

I'm chair of the district's Multimodal Accessibility Advisory Council.

It's a mayorly appointed council to represent the voices of people with disabilities.

And I want to zoom in on the connection, the pedestrian connection to East Potomac Park.

This has been a perennial source of real frustration and danger.

I'm not sure if you're aware, but back in 2021, once flooding started to occur and the existing

pedestrian connection around East Potomac Park became unusable.

There were essentially no pedestrian facilities at all on EPP around Haines Point and then also continuing north where the connection is.

And then because NPS maintained the motorist lanes and no pedestrian connections, the inevitable happened and two people were killed when a driver

mowed down to pedestrians.

And this is kind of the nightmare scenario where after basically begging NPS to do something, they created a painted bicycle lane or painted shared lane

for both pedestrians and bicyclists and I'm worried that, and you know we've heard continually complaints that people are parking in there because it wasn't concrete protected and now I'm worried that we're just going to repeat the same mistakes with another painted connection.

Just put yourself in the shoes of a wheelchair user and if that's your only connection you're just basically like

Can we go back to the rendering where the bike ped bridge meets East Potomac Park?

Because it is not, just to be clear, it's not a painted connection.

It is fully separated from the travel lanes.

So you can see where it's dropping out.

And then you can see where there's the bike lane and the travel lanes.

So if your comment is on the bike lane in East Potomac Park, I will say that that is outside of our project.

It's not part of our project, right?

It's outside the scope of the project.

But as far as our connection that we're building, it's completely physically separated from vehicles.

So hopefully that

answers that part of the question.

Or at least where this connection is, like I'm just, I was kind of going on Google Maps and trying to find exactly where this is, and I actually don't see, like, is this sidewalk just, so once you guys finish, does it just end?

Yeah, so this connects into a sidewalk and then you can't see it here.

I'm sure that we could follow up with you after the meeting, but the sidewalk won't stay that way.

Yeah, I just want to be clear.

Yeah, this is fully ADA compliant, but I definitely hear that there are some concerns about East Potomac Park as a whole.

I do know that NPS is

has been working on a seawall project, which hopefully, I don't know how much people know about the history of East Potomac Park, but it was built on fill.

It's not a naturally occurring island or a park.

And that fill has been sinking over decades, which is why many of those sidewalks are literally sinking into the Potomac River.

And so the seawall that prevents that erosion has been damaged.

and so I know that NPS is working on multiple projects that will be addressing the seawall.

So one thing that I can say is that the Long Bridge project is going to be reconstructing some portions of that seawall where our, like directly underneath our project while we're constructing the bridge.

We won't be reconstructing the entire seawall for East Potomac Park, but I know NPS, I know NPS would be able to speak more to the status of their projects and I think that

Got it.

I just want to make sure that whatever is in the jurisdiction, NPS has proven to be a super unreliable partner.

So whatever is in your jurisdiction should be completely ADA compliant.

And think about you as a wheelchair user.

100%.

And I can assure you that everything that is within the scope of our project is fully ADA accessible.

Obviously not the rail bridges, but I'm hoping that none of you are on rail bridges in the first place.

We have a different problem if that's the case, but sorry, that was a lighthearted joke.

As far as ADA accessibility, I don't know how long you've been following the project, but actually our initial design with this landing had a number of switchback ramps designed, and we actually got a lot of negative feedback both from the ADA community and from cyclists, but that was going to be a very negative user experience to have to navigate these long and winding switchback ramps.

The idea of the switchback ramps were to decrease the footprint, but also to raise everything out of the out of any potential flood zone.

But it was the feedback that we got was it was going to be a very negative user experience.

And so that's why you see the design that you see today, which is like a direct connection in but fully separated and fully ADA compliant.

Thank you, Naomi.

Yeah, that was a great answer.

We're going to go on and move on to a question that we have in the chat.

Herman has a question.

I can answer that.

I mean, we don't at the moment have plans to do that, but we can look into it.

So I'd be happy to follow up with you about the details of how to arrange something like that.

Herman, do you?

Oh, I guess he can't speak.

I was going to say, do you guys do that for DDOT projects?

You do?

So I'll go ahead and read.

We have Kevin O'Brien.

He has a question.

He has his hand raised, so I'll go ahead and ask him to unmute.

Hi there.

Kevin O'Brien with the Washington Area Bicycles Association.

Definitely we have and have, you know, expressed similar concerns to Karthik, the earlier speaker, about the landing at Ohio Drive.

I won't won't litigate that.

I did want to flag another just sort of question, comment and

and it's really around the Main Avenue pedestrian bridge.

Love the fact that you're pushing back those abutments to create more space on Main Avenue.

That's going to be great.

It's totally a pinch point, and this will be a marked improvement.

But for the pedestrian bridge over Main Avenue, I kind of just question the

It's impacted in value as part of this larger project.

I understand it's privately owned.

It's being seized to do this project.

You have an obligation to rebuild it.

But I'm looking at that bridge, and it's not connecting anything.

It's replacing an existing subpar connection that doesn't really get you from one place to another.

And we're replacing it with another.

this is adding some significant cost, right, and what you have to do again.

But I would love to see that bridge

be a little more comprehensive?

And I just wonder, you know, in conversation with DDOT and others, like, how can we use rebuilding this bridge to actually, like, accomplish and connect into some other things?

Because the idea of just replicating, you know, basically a private bridge, right, for folks who, you know, live or

work or staying at a hotel for them to cross over Main Avenue.

It feels like it should do more.

And if we're going to spend the time, the money to rebuild it, I would love to see that bridge do more.

Whether that's feasible to bring it all the way across the channel, I don't know.

Or even just more connectivity north of Main Avenue.

Again, it's this

Thanks, Kevin.

I absolutely hear you on the points that you are making.

And I think if we could extend it across the Washington Channel, that was actually something that we did look at as far as the bike pedestrian bridge across the Potomac River of

Could we take this even further?

The real issue comes to that there is not the right of way.

Like there's just not space.

This is a very constrained metropolitan area.

And so it's really just not, there's physical limitations as to the right of way and having to take out private buildings in order to do that.

and so that's why it ended up being unrealistic.

As far as this bridge, as you mentioned, it is private so while you know DDOT has oversight in the safety of the bridge because it goes over Main Avenue, they don't really have any perspective as far as like

whether a bridge should go somewhere else.

So I hear what you're saying as far as like, it feels like this private bridge only is serving the private business, which you are, I don't think you're 100% wrong.

I will say that this bridge is open to the public.

So it's not that it's, not that the access is private.

So you're able to get onto the bridge from the sidewalk on Main Avenue.

And then where it gets you is up over the Maryland Avenue overbuild.

I will tell you that we did bring up the concept with the business owners of like is there an alternate connection that could be provided other than a bridge because as you point out bridges are very expensive to rebuild and you know is there a street connection that we could improve but the business owners have maintained that this is a very important piece of infrastructure to their business and that this connection point over Main Avenue in order to access both the wharf and the title basin

is a huge part of how they are able to maintain their business.

I don't, at this time, see there being a possibility of us building a bridge to somewhere else.

Honestly, if we weren't touching this bridge, we wouldn't be building any bridge at all.

The only reason that this has become part of the project is because we have to take out an existing connection, and that impacts pedestrian circulation.

Yeah, so we thank you, Miami.

We do have a hand raised from Commissioner Washington.

I'm going to unmute.

Hello, I'm sorry, it wasn't allowing me to unmute.

Thank you for all the information thus far.

I've spoke with different stakeholders and partners of the project already.

about the bridge part over Main Avenue.

My only question is since you guys can't extend the bridge and one of the conversations I brought up being able to at least have on that bridge

like bike repair stations and or or like you know how in some parts and areas there may be like an air pump or like tools that bicyclists can use to repair their bikes.

That's a great question.

So I think, and thank you for that question.

And it's nice to see you again.

So I think in this conversation, part of this, part of the issue here, which we've spoken about a little bit is that this is a private, this bridge is a private bridge.

And once we rebuild the bridge, it will stay as a private bridge.

So I think it's just identifying if the bridge owners are amenable to that concept.

And also if somebody has to be willing to maintain it, right, we, we in our essence are a rail authority.

Our expertise and our capacity is not in bike-ped, even though I know that there are aspects of this project that are specifically bike and pedestrian infrastructure.

Our real purpose and mission is to expand rail capacity.

So it would really just be a matter of, are the private property owners willing to have that installed?

And we would be happy to pay for that.

at GPRA, but are they willing to maintain it?

Because we really don't have the tools or capacity to maintain something like that in perpetuity.

The other place where we were looking, and I think we had discussed this, is at the bike pedestrian bridge landing in East Potomac Park.

because the National Park Service does have a number of those stations on other trails.

When we looked into it, those were all privately donated by foundations or friends, you know, friend organizations of the park.

And so they were they were donated and they're donated and maintained by private dollars.

So I think we would end up in kind of a similar conversation of, can we identify somebody who would be willing to

take on the long-term maintenance responsibility.

I think we have no opposition to finding a good location where we could install one.

Thank you for that.

We do have, just wanted to give a follow-up in regards to Herma's answer to the WTOP question.

He noted that they do do those for major impacts to traffic.

So we'll follow the offline.

We have a question from Sheila.

Hi, this is Sheila Thibodeau.

I'm the property manager at one of the buildings at Portals.

One of the questions I have is when is construction estimated to start and what will be the impact of that local area

Yeah, great question.

So as far as when construction is expected to start, we are finalizing design right now.

So last fall, we hit the 60% design milestone, we're advancing to 90 and 100%.

Right now we're doing some early works construction, which is like very early prep activity, things like utility relocation, or like test shafts, or doing some some geologic testing of the ground as far as when we will begin full construction.

like fall or by the end of this year.

As far as those, there will be some impact and we are coordinating with DDOT on the overall maintenance of traffic plan.

I don't want to get into too much detail because it's not, we're still working through it with the district to make sure it's a plan that they are acceptable of, but there will be some lane closures on Main Avenue.

I also know that there will be some impacts on Maiden Lane as well.

As far as your question surrounding the noise, we are working with Amtrak, CSX, and VRE in order to determine what work can we do during the day and then what is the quietest work that can be done at night.

and figuring out what those work windows are.

I realize that these answers are not necessarily maybe the exact specific details but I think that in the next CAG meeting that we'll be having we'll have a lot more specific details to be able to answer those questions.

But there are going to be traffic impacts and I think our goal is to make sure that we get out ahead of those by starting this conversation now

and then when we know those specific details, being able to share that information.

And you may have seen that there's already been some minor traffic impacts for, you know, for example, we might need a lane of Main Avenue from 11 to 4, you know, for a couple of days.

And so you may see something like that.

For the full construction, those traffic impacts will be in the road for longer, but we'll make sure that

Thanks, Naomi.

I think that was a great answer.

We do have another question on the phone with the hand raised.

And just doing a time check, I know we're running out of time.

So I'm going to do these last two questions and then check the chat.

So Katherine White, I'm going to unmute you and lower your hand.

Oh, there we are.

All right.

Hi.

I just wanted to say, one, as a Carvery family, I'm really excited about this for a variety of reasons, having just taken the train to Richmond two weekends ago with my family and seeing this pinch point firsthand.

This is wonderful.

And the pedestrian cycling bridge is like a serious bonus on top of it.

So thank you for this work.

The other thing, two questions.

One thing I was not clear about from the presentation was on the Virginia side, is this connecting?

It seemed like it's just dying into the GW Trail.

Yeah, there's two different connections.

So it connects on, it drops at two different points.

Okay, great.

Then my other question was, since you addressed my previous question, which was about mode separation, since it is going to be 16 feet wide, is there a plan to have bollards and protection from vehicles?

I know there's something about guardrails at some point in your presentation.

You're talking about the bike pedestrian bridge?

No, no, no, I'm talking about at the various like sort of ramps and trailheads.

Okay, so if can we go back to the visuals of the connection points?

So this is at Long Bridge Trail.

And then the Mount Vernon Trail should be like the other side previously.

So this is also fully separated from vehicular.

There's no vehicles anywhere nearby.

And then if you can go to the Ohio Drive landing,

So this does have a railing because to your point, like cars could go across the bike lane.

Oh, too far.

Let's go back to that previous one.

Well, I'll keep talking while we work on that.

There is a railing.

where that drops you to your point of vehicles being able to jump the curb.

So I guess if the question is like, could that railing go further?

Okay, I've just seen both very confused tourists do wild things and also very reckless drivers do wild things.

Yeah.

Yeah, understood.

We have one more question.

And this will be our final question for the afternoon.

If there are any other additional questions, you can email us at info at longbridgeproject.com.

or follow up with us.

Great, thanks.

Yeah, I also want to associate myself with Catherine's comments.

It's great.

Like, I'm super excited about this entire project.

The underneath, so in the crossing of Main Avenue, some of the supports for the existing rail bridge impinge on the sidewalk.

So it's definitely not ADA compliant.

I just want to make sure like, you know, again, kind of

The majority of people with disabilities that don't own or operate a car, both after construction and during construction.

After construction, for sure, there's all of the sidewalks that are going to be impacted

by the New Bridge and everything that's being constructed.

Anything that we touch is going to bring up to ADA compliance.

And then also on the MOT side with DDOT, they have a nasty habit of closing sidewalks, but not closing car lanes.

And last, so when this happened on Rhode Island Avenue,

There was someone who was crossing the street because they were forced to with a closed sidewalk on a major arterial or an arterial street, which Main Avenue is.

And there was another person who was killed.

And I just like, again, like kind of really thinking through people outside of a car.

And so both during construction, that was a DC, so DDOT permitted DC water to close the sidewalk on Rhode Island and someone got killed.

And I just really want to make sure, even though DDOT will give you a permit to close the sidewalk, even though it's against their last resort guidance, it should not be done.

And creating a safe accommodation, especially given how long it takes

to go across, how long it takes to go from one side or the distance of Main Avenue that you can walk on one side of the street without actually having any ability to cross the street.

There are going to be people who need to cross the street.

It's, and you know, if we're not

Great comment.

Thank you very much for that comment.

Thank you.

That's the slide I was going to ask for.

So I think we went over the slide earlier in the presentation, but the orange is the current sidewalk and the purple is the new sidewalk.

So that's definitely going to be vastly improved.

On the north side, I believe that that sidewalk doesn't have that same pinch point caused by the abutment, but I don't think that there's any narrowing of what is already existing on the north side of the sidewalk.

The other thing I'll mention to your point about the Main Avenue pedestrian bridge is right now we are proposing that during construction we would be providing a temporary pedestrian bridge that would also be ADA accessible.

So you would be able to cross Main Avenue on a pedestrian bridge for the duration of the project.

It would just be on a temporary bridge that's not going to look as nice and fancy as the renderings of this new bridge that we're showing you.

The last comment to your point about car length and sidewalks is I can tell you that we will have to close some of the sidewalk in this area.

The reason being that a lot of our staging to be able to construct the rail bridge over Main Avenue has to happen from the Washington Marina parking lot, which means that we're going to have to construct an entrance, a truck entrance.

to that staging area that will have to essentially have trucks going over the sidewalk.

But I know that as part of our MOT in areas where we have to close the sidewalk, we will be providing a sidewalk in the roadway.

We will also have to be taking vehicle lanes as well.

So it's not only that pedestrians and cyclists will be impacted by the project, all modes will be impacted at some point where we're building a railroad.

It's a major undertaking.

So our goal is to make sure that we try to mitigate those impacts to all roadway users as much as we possibly can.

And we are working with DDOT additionally to have an, I would call it, expanded MOT during high volume times.

So cherry blossom or 4th of July.

Can we provide even more pedestrian and cyclist access during those times that we know that there will be a high volume of those users?

So hopefully that addresses all of your comments, but we absolutely understand that we need to look at this from the perspective of somebody who

who is getting around in modes that are not cars.

I can tell you I've lived in the district for over 10 years.

I have not had a car that entire time.

I'm from Atlanta where I was very dependent on a car and I used to live in Navy Yard myself.

So I understand how important this is to district residents and to cyclists and pedestrians, and we take that very seriously.

So I realize that we're like almost 10 minutes over time, but I think that was a really good comment.

Naomi, I want to add very briefly on top of that, just piggybacking off of the MOT accommodations for pedestrians.

Thank you, Naomi.

Thank you, Ian.

Thank you, everyone, for joining us this afternoon and for your patience as we do our construction.

Please continue to stay safe.

This concludes the meeting.

Have a great afternoon, everyone.

And again, we have our contact information that is listed in the chat to maintain correspondence with us.

And I'll give the information once again on longbridgeproject.com, our email,

info at longbridge.com and our contact number, our hotline number is 202-769-1808.