Long Bridge Project Community Advisory Group CAG Meeting #3 – Washington, DC   10/15/2025

Good afternoon and thank you for joining us for today's Community Advisory Group meeting.

Thank you so much for joining us for today's community advisory group meeting.

We'll be getting started in just a few moments.

Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining us.

We'll get started in about two minutes.

Just letting some more members of the community advisory group join the meeting.

Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining us for today's community advisory group meeting.

We'll get started in about one minute.

All right, Meredith, do you want to get started with the meeting?

Yes, great.

Yes, I would.

Good morning.

I am Meredith Judy, the Community Affairs Manager with Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, and we thank you for joining our third meeting of the Long Bridge Project Community Advisory Group with a focus on the DC area.

We

As you may recall, the Community Advisory Group is made up of a wide range of stakeholders and interest groups in the DC area with the particular concern for the construction and the long-term benefits of the Long Bridge project.

We have residential groups such as the ANC represented.

We have businesses such as the Wharf, businesses throughout the Wharf and the management company, the portals, museums in the area.

We have major stakeholders such as our DDOT public information officers and WMATA public information officers.

We have advocacy groups, bike and pedestrian and others, and we have elected officials, groups and staffers such as Council Members Allen's office, the Mayor's Office of Community Relations.

So we're just very happy and many others.

We're just really happy to have you all involved in an ongoing basis with the Long Bridge project.

Intent of these meetings is to keep you informed throughout the life of the project.

We'll be meeting on a quarterly basis.

We want it to be as accessible as possible, so we hold most of the meetings via Zoom, although we can certainly do some tours as we have more to show in person as the construction unfolds.

And then we also hope that you will help keep us informed about the best way for us to stay engaged with the community and to keep

Let's start with introductions.

We actually have many staff and consultants on the line here ready to answer your questions throughout the course of the meeting.

I just want to highlight a few

Key individuals who will be speaking with you today.

Hi, good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Naomi Klein and I am the permitting and stakeholder senior manager for the Long Bridge Project.

Good afternoon, everyone.

And you already met me, Meredith Judy, the community affairs manager with VPRA.

We'll go to the second line.

I don't think you can speak right now, but we have Ian Langan, the Project Manager for the Long Bridge Project at Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

Hey, my name is Tom O'Rourke.

Good morning.

Sean Samick.

I'm the Deputy Project Manager for Long Bridge Rail Partners.

Also with Long Bridge Rail Partners is Brian Breeze.

He's the Senior Project Manager.

Great.

Thank you.

Next slide.

A brief overview of our agenda today.

We'll do a quick update refresher on the Long Bridge project and what it is for anyone who's new, and then we'll spend most of our time focused on

the Long Bridge project, construction timeline, the latest construction activities, what's upcoming, specifically with a focus on travel impacts for cars, bicyclists and pedestrians, and trains and other travelers.

And we will provide you with an update on the public and stakeholder outreach activities we've been doing.

Next slide.

Thanks, Meredith.

So I'm going to give a very brief project overview, seeing as this is our third meeting.

Hopefully, those of you who are joining us are familiar with the project, but just in case you are joining us for the first time, welcome.

We are glad that you're here.

What you're looking at on the left hand side of the screen is a rendering that shows you that we are in a corridor of many bridges crossing the Potomac River.

And so although they are labeled from left to right, you can see the 14th Street Bridge.

Next to that is the Wamata Yellow Line Bridge.

And then our project for Long Bridge Project is in between the Wamata Yellow Line Bridge and the existing two-track rail bridge.

So you have a new two-track rail bridge that will be owned by the state of Virginia, by the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

and then a dedicated bicycle pedestrian bridge that will be built alongside that.

That's going to be a 16 foot wide bridge that is for bikes and pedestrians only that is going to connect the Long Bridge Park and Long Bridge Aquatic Center and the Mount Vernon Trail on the Arlington, Virginia side with the bike lanes in East Potomac Park on Ohio Drive in the district.

So that's the image that you're looking at, just to take a small step back and just talk about what the project is and what is the project purpose.

So when you're looking at the East Coast and you're looking at, you know, everything that travels by rail, about, I think it's 30 to 40 percent of all freight travels by rail.

So not on, you know, the trucks that you'll see on the highway.

This corridor was at 98% capacity, specifically at the picture that you're looking at now.

And why that's important, if you're looking at the existing Long Bridge, that is only two tracks.

South of that in Arlington and Alexandria, that expands to three tracks.

If you go to Union Station, you go up the Northeast Corridor, that is at four tracks.

But right here at this bridge, at the pinch point over the Potomac River, it narrows down to only two tracks.

and that bridge currently serves CSX Freight, who CSX is the owner of the existing bridge.

It serves VRE commuter rail and then Amtrak inner city passenger rail service.

So if you've ever ridden an Amtrak train, north or south of DC, you have gone over this bridge.

I think we've got somebody who needs to be muted.

Patrice, you could help me out with that.

I'll keep going.

OK, great.

Thank you, guys.

So the orange juice that you're getting from Florida that's going up the Northeast Corridor, that is going over this two-track bridge, which is at 90% capacity.

And as we know in the DC metro area, the population is really growing rapidly.

And people want to travel into the city to work, to enjoy themselves.

and also travel all throughout the state of Virginia.

So the Long Bridge project is one project of many projects along the corridor.

We have an entire program called Transforming Rail in Virginia, where we have a series of projects to expand passenger rail.

And what this will do is allow us to have a more frequent and reliable Amtrak and VRE service, including night and weekend service and additional round trips that we'll be able to add

as we complete these projects and unlock new service.

So that is the big picture of why are we building the Long Bridge project.

And there are some facts on the right hand side, while we call it the Long Bridge project, there's actually five bridges.

And then there's also a bike pedestrian bridge, as I've mentioned, and a new bridge in Main Avenue.

So we can go to the next slide, please.

So this project is so large that it's actually broken into two packages for the purposes of construction, what we call a north package and a south package.

So the north package is everything in the district.

It starts in East Potomac Park on the other side of the Potomac River, goes across I-395, goes across the Washington Channel over Main Avenue through the Maryland Avenue overbuild, and then ends just south at L'Enfant Station.

and then the south package is everything over the Potomac River and into Arlington, Virginia.

So that two-track rail bridge across the Potomac River and the bicycle pedestrian bridge.

This project is fully funded, both packages, and for the north package, we're doing what's called a progressive design build method.

For the south package, it's a design build method.

But I think the most important part is that we've got our design build teams on board for both of those packages and are advancing towards

Final Design and Construction.

We're here today really to talk about the north package, but we'll also be talking about impacts to people who use the Potomac River for boating and other recreational activities.

For the north package, we are already beginning what are called early works, which are basically smaller construction packages that allow us to get ready for that larger bridge construction, so things like

utility relocation and changes to traffic patterns to set up our staging and access areas.

For the south package, we are moving into final design and we believe that construction will be starting mid next year.

Next slide, please.

And this is the area.

So again, we're here today to talk about the portion of the project in D.C.

and some of the changes to traffic, specifically around the Main Avenue area.

So the rail bridge over Main Avenue is really the critical path for this project.

The reason being is that over Main Avenue, the space that we have to work in becomes so constrained that we cannot build a separate structure.

We essentially, there is a two-track rail bridge over Main Avenue.

We will have to

take down that two-track rail bridge and build a new four-track rail bridge, all while still maintaining rail traffic.

That's a very complicated process, which I'm sure we can get into detail if people have questions at the end of the meeting.

Then in addition to constructing that four-track rail bridge, there is a current pedestrian bridge that crosses Main Avenue.

It is privately owned by the owners on the Maryland Avenue overbuild at the Salamander Hotel and the Portals Development.

and that bridge will have to be taken down in order to make room for the four-track rail bridge, and we will be reconstructing that bridge and also adding some ADA improvements.

That bridge is currently only accessible by staircases.

It's not ADA accessible, so we'll be adding a ramp.

So you can see some renderings of that from an aerial version, and these designs have already been reviewed by the National Capital Planning Commission and the Commission of Fine Arts.

So you can go to the next slide.

This is our timeline of where we have been and where we are going.

So preliminary engineering began in 2022.

Prior to that, DDOT, the district, was actually the lead on the project.

They did the environmental assessment and then handed the project off to Virginia to VPRA to complete design and construct.

So we completed preliminary engineering at the end of 2023 and we began final design when we brought on the progressive design builder Skanska Flat Iron Joint Ventures and final design is we're nearing the end of final design now, we're starting our early works construction packages and then we anticipate construction for the next five years

Like I said, we're doing the early works packages now through the beginning of next year.

And then we anticipate starting full construction mid 2026 and completing construction in 2030.

Good afternoon again.

My name is Brian Brace.

I'm the project manager here for Long Bridge Rail Partners on the south project.

So we have a short animation here that we want to show that will kind of give you an idea of our overall construction approach to build both the rail bridge and the pedestrian bridge, just to give everybody an idea of how we intend to build this project.

So Meredith, are you able to back up?

Sorry, we tested it.

Give me one second.

Which button were you referring to?

OK, I did that.

Give me one second.

Let me try it again.

We'll give it one more shot here.

Yes, you do know it well enough, I would say.

We heard it for a second there.

Okay.

That's really odd.

It's OK, I know you tested it.

These things happen.

Go ahead Liz.

So just to give everybody some orientation, Virginia is down in the lower right hand corner and DC is on the upper left.

When we start construction, we're taking a floating approach.

We will be attacking the job from both shorelines, working our way towards the middle.

So we'll have some pile driving cranes out there, followed by some substructure cranes.

What you're looking at is a unique way of erecting the tubs here to keep additional crane booms out of the air and considering

FAA traffic and railroad traffic and things along those lines.

Again, we're working our way to the middle so we can kind of vacate through the main channel.

The superstructure will be erected through a unique jacking system from barges, again, keeping crane booms out of the air.

We're very limited on space, so we'll bring the units in completely assembled.

We'll put them on barges, jack them up into place.

The Ped Bridge, after the rail bridge is constructed, will be constructed in a similar manner, working from the Virginia shoreline through to DC.

Similarly, we'll drive Pyle, followed by substructure erection, and the superstructure erection will actually be performed from the new rail bridge.

Again, space is very limited out there, so once we have the new piers for the Ped Bridge in,

We have very limited opportunity to fit additional barges in there.

This is a view looking back towards Virginia.

You can see the new Long Bridge on the left with the Ped Bridge on the right tucked in between the WMATA yellow line and the existing Long Bridge.

I don't think I did quite as good a job as the narration,

Thanks, Brian.

You're welcome.

Okay, so we can start with an explanation here of completed activities and ongoing and future activities for the south project.

For the last few months, we've been working through what is called our scope validation phase.

And that's really a period of time where we're allowed to go out there and validate some of our design assumptions.

So we've been out there on the water for the past few months taking geotechnical borings to validate our geological assumptions.

doing some survey, non-destructive survey of existing structures, things along those lines.

The boring operation completed last month and we've since demobilized the drills and a majority of the barges from the river out there.

Looking forward into the future a little bit, we're going to have some tree and brush clearing on both sides of the river, both DC and Virginia.

and then we're going to get into our test pile operations.

We have four test piles.

Actually, I think that's on the next slide, so I apologize.

Next slide, please.

We have four test piles to be driven for the project.

One on land on Virginia side of the river, two out in the river, and one on the DC side in East Potomac Park.

You can see the crane in the photo there.

with the leads hanging.

That's generally what the pile driving operation is going to look like.

So when we engage into our test pile operation, you're going to see a crane, you're going to see hammers, and you're going to hear some repetitive bangs as the impact hammer drives the pile into the ground.

And again, the purpose of the test pile operation is to verify the engineering assumptions that we made as part of our design and so we can fine tune and optimize our final design.

And again, you're going to hear repeated blow of the impact hammer hitting the pile over a period of time.

After we drive the test pile, we have to load test those to make sure that they've achieved their assumed capacity.

So what we're going to do, what we're proposing is a statinamic load test.

And what this is, it is a controlled explosive.

which basically imparts the future load into the pile.

So what you're going to hear is an explosion, but it is controlled.

If you're not looking for it, you probably won't hear from too far away.

Obviously, the area around the test pile operation will be controlled from a public perspective.

There's one statinamic test per pile, so we're going to do one on the Virginia side.

Two out on the water and one on DC land.

Just because of the nature of the pile that we're driving on the DC land side, that statinamic test will be smaller than the other three.

Next slide.

So when we get out there at various phases of our work, very similar to what you would have out on a roadway where you have maintenance and traffic and you're working in a lane closure, we need to control the voting public as they're working through our work zone.

So over the course of this past summer, we were generally out there working amongst the voting public without incident.

Moving forward as we mobilize those barges, those cranes out onto the water and we're working our way from the shorelines out to the navigational channel, we'll be setting up a controlled exclusion zone, keeping boats traveling public out of our work areas from a safety perspective.

You'll see a series of signage and buoys that guide the boats through the work zone so they can go up and downstream safely.

That zone is going to shift as our work area shifts, but that's what you can be looking for.

Yeah.

On the north package, there has been quite a bit of construction going on, not the least of which is a traffic switch along the 14th Street access road and along westbound Main Avenue.

If you all travel that area, I'm sure you've seen the maintenance of traffic devices and so forth.

Westbound Main Avenue has been reduced to two lanes.

But there is a good bit of ongoing work that will continue.

Crash work has been ongoing for some time.

It will continue to occur underneath the Maryland Overbuild.

And like I mentioned, there's a lot of maintenance of traffic activities going on in the field as well as future plans for future maintenance of traffic phases.

Some of the tree and brush clearing has occurred, but there will be quite a bit more as we get into the winter months here.

Next slide.

Just to expand on the 14th Street access road closure operation here, this graphic signifies the current state of conditions along westbound Main Avenue there.

You see an orange

That access road from westbound Main Avenue to northbound 14th Street has been closed along with the right lane along westbound Main Avenue.

And so what that necessitated is a change in operation along the access road in order to maintain access to the 1331 parking entrance and the loading dock.

Access to both of those areas will be maintained uninterrupted.

But it did change the operation of the access road from a one way operation to a two way operation.

So motorists bound for that those accesses need to come in from D Street and this setup has been in place over a month now.

So I think folks are getting

used to this operation.

We do have a traffic alert video that was issued several weeks ago to explain that access road closure

and the maintenance of traffic changes.

It's about two to three minutes long and I don't know if we want to show it because if the sound is not working, maybe we'll provide the link.

Yeah, Lindsay, do you think that issue might be solved or do we want to just skip this?

I mean, Scott has explained it.

OK, alright, that's alright.

We can skip it.

That's right.

I think Brian did a better job narrating on his video.

Come on, go for it, Scott.

Yeah, there's a really nice one coming out in the next

a week or two that will explain all of the traffic changes upcoming on Main Avenue between now and 2030, what we're anticipating.

Just to highlight kind of big picture here, there's really two

phases of construction that I wanted to tease out here along Main Avenue.

There's a westbound construction phase and an eastbound construction phase depicted by the two graphics here.

The westbound is in the dark green, which is mainly working up near the Salamander Hotel and the Portals development.

The eastbound construction will be when work is occurring over within the Washington Marina.

The schedule below kind of corresponds with the colors.

So the westbound construction phase that we're currently in will be in place until approximately spring of 26, where then traffic will be toggled to the eastbound construction phase.

And so the travel lanes along Main Avenue will be changed, kind of toggled back and forth

basically between now and 2030.

So a lot more details to share, but big picture, we thought that would be helpful to show these graphics here.

Next slide.

Throughout all this work along 14th Street access road and Main Avenue, our goal is safe access for all road users.

There are a lot of road users and constraints and demands in this corridor, not the least of which are tens of thousands of motorists along Main Avenue, hundreds and thousands of pedestrians through different periods.

Of course, the Salamander Hotel.

The portal's development has multiple construction projects going on in the vicinity.

the Washington Marina is operating its ports and so forth, as well as the train operations of CSX, VRE and Amtrak.

So our goal is safety throughout construction and we're trying to streamline that construction as much as possible and minimize impacts.

There will be the need for occasional nighttime lane closures along Main Avenue and potentially some weekend detours.

Of course,

There will be plenty of advance notice prior to those occurring.

Like we talked about, the 14th Street access road has been closed to improve safety.

You may already see some utility work going on out there.

The Skanska Flatiron team are moving quickly to get that work done.

There will be periods where the 14th Street ramp

to Main Avenue will be closed for some extended periods.

I'll talk a little bit about more about that in a little bit.

But along Main Avenue will always be maintaining two lanes in the westbound direction during construction.

And then, as Naomi mentioned on the front end, the Main Avenue pedestrian bridge crossing will be maintained at all times.

The existing bridge will remain active until a temporary bridge is constructed and available for use.

Just an overview here during the westbound construction traffic pattern here.

This graphic is indicating how many travel lanes and where pedestrians are.

During the eastbound construction traffic pattern, two westbound lanes will exist along westbound Main Avenue, but only one lane on eastbound Main Avenue will remain open and they will be separated by barrier with pedestrian traffic around the work area.

Next slide.

So I wanted to tease out and highlight one ramp closure.

This is the northbound 14th Street ramp closure to eastbound Main Avenue.

It's kind of tucked in there between 14th Street and the rail corridor there where motorists are able to come up to a traffic signal and make a right turn onto eastbound Main Avenue.

This ramp will likely be closed throughout most of construction because right at

Along that ramp and approaching Main Avenue is a new retaining wall that needs to be constructed and the new rail bridge over Main Avenue.

And the constraints of the construction in there and the room that's required to construct the bridge and that retaining wall necessitated to be closed.

So the traffic signal will be removed when that ramp is closed.

and we're currently collaborating with DDOT on several detour alternatives, again, to minimize impacts as much as possible.

And of course, well before the ramp is closed, advance notice will be provided to motorists, pedestrians, and bicyclists through the area.

Next slide.

Back on the westbound construction

traffic pattern here.

We wanted to tease out the pedestrian and bike accessibility routes here, and you'll see in the upper left graphic there where pedestrians are maintained along the eastbound travel lanes of Main Avenue, right where they currently exist.

But pedestrians along the westbound side of Main Avenue will be detoured.

and the graphic on the right there highlights that detour route.

Pedestrians will be routed up to D Street and over to 12th Street and back down to Main Avenue there.

The access along that south along the eastbound side, the eastbound lanes of Main Avenue will be eight feet wide at all times.

And actually during cherry blossom season and the 4th of July,

that access will be widened to include two eight-foot-wide paths to accommodate the pedestrian demands.

Next slide.

Similarly, in the eastbound construction phase, pedestrians will be maintained along the eastbound lanes of Main Avenue.

They'll be rerouted a little bit.

but they'll always be maintained there.

The path will be eight feet wide and during those peak seasons it will be widened to two eight foot wide paths.

But on that westbound side, pedestrians will continue to be detoured to 12th Street and D Street to just keep them completely away from the work zone for safety reasons.

Next slide.

So in summary, this kind of line diagram here

just indicates the number of travel lanes and the pedestrian paths for the westbound construction traffic pattern and the eastbound construction traffic pattern.

Just to highlight that two lanes along westbound Main Avenue will always be maintained and along eastbound Main Avenue, one travel lane will be available in the eastbound phase.

but two lanes will be maintained during the westbound construction phase.

Next slide.

We are, like I mentioned, working to minimize and mitigate the construction disturbances as much as possible.

Here's a sample list of how we're going about trying to do that as much as possible there.

Complying with the district's noise ordinance,

We're regularly monitoring noise levels to ensure that we stay within the established limit using backup alarms that regulate the volume based on ambient conditions.

We're also monitoring vibration to ensure the structural integrity of adjacent buildings and the design as well as the construction equipment.

We're really trying to utilize drilling equipment

as much as possible as opposed to pile driving to minimize the vibrations throughout the area there.

So again, this is just a sampling of the mitigation measures we're taking, but we thought this would be helpful.

And I think that's it.

As a reminder, we, thank you, Scott.

As a reminder, we have ongoing coordination at multiple levels with agencies and authorities in the region.

That's from the federal level to regional level coordination, and of course, regular communication and meetings with District Department of Transportation, the Virginia Department of Transportation, and other local authorities.

The Southwest bid, though not a specific authority, has continued to be an excellent resource and we've continued to coordinate with closely to understand the needs of the businesses and residents in the area.

We communicate on topics such as traffic and travel flow for autos, rail, bike, pedestrians, and boats.

We carefully analyze and reevaluate traffic analyses.

Noise and Vibration, Structures, Roadway and Drainage, Utilities, Inspections and Permits are a key component of our ongoing work with stakeholders, adjacent projects.

We have a quarterly meeting.

There are many, many projects happening, as you all know, in this area, and we want to make sure that we all know what each other is doing.

And then our ongoing public outreach.

Next slide.

We have been doing a lot of public outreach or continued to do a lot of public outreach this summer and fall.

We want to highlight some of that for you.

We attend all of the ANC 60 business meetings.

Even if we don't have an item specifically on the agenda, we are there to answer questions that community members might have.

We've been conducting door-to-door outreach as well as significant online digital outreach.

We put yard signs throughout the area and other signage for

the recent changes in traffic that Scott described and we will continue to do that as those traffic patterns change over time.

We have ongoing meetings with, we've established some regular coordination meetings where DDOT and VPRA meet together with some of the key stakeholders in the area in coordination with Southwest BID to make sure that the wharf, the

Maryland Avenue Overbuild Portals area and other major property owners and business in the area have their questions answered regarding delivery access and shoppers and other business accessibility.

We distribute traffic advisories through DDOT, VDOT and National Park Service.

We recently

released our second newsletter.

I hope that you've received it.

If you didn't, please make sure to sign up so you receive it in the future.

Packed with lots of useful information and links to videos, which are a nice compact way to absorb some of the latest information.

And we've been tabling at a variety of neighborhood events from the farmer's market to the Wharf movie night where we were able to preview some of our video or one of our videos about upcoming traffic changes.

We were at Arena Stage Community Day.

Outreach in Hancock Park has been a great way to reach some of the people who work in this Southwest and the Family Fall Fest, which is coming up next weekend.

Next.

Just want to make sure that everybody knows how to reach us through our email information hotline.

We also have a phone hotline and if you sign up for our social media links and our

write to us at this email address, we'll add you to our newsletter.

Of course, we'll have onsite signage as well, and continuous door to door outreach and community meetings.

Jerica is up next to talk about service changes for rail.

Thank you, Meredith.

So as others have mentioned, there are a couple of changes to

road traffic, but there will also be some service impacts for passenger and commuter rail.

As someone mentioned, there are noise and vibration laws in the district that prevent nighttime work.

And so we will have to carve out some time for daytime hours when work requires our crews to be working on or near the tracks.

and so what that will call for is a five-hour outage for rail passenger and freight rail service beginning in January 2026.

So we, VPRA, working with our freight partners and our passenger and commuter rail partners, VRE and Amtrak, have put together a timeframe between 8.15 a.m.

and 1 o'clock p.m. to have a work window where we will not have any trains come through across our work zone which includes all of the

areas that folks have talked about, including crossing the actual river.

There is also work on the Northeast Corridor with Amtrak and at Union Station that requires some adjustment.

And Washington Union Station is significantly congested in the afternoon, so there will be service impacts that affect Amtrak Virginia, which is our state supported service, Amtrak Long Distance, the Carolinian, which is North Carolina state supported service,

and the VRE lines, both the Fredericksburg and Manassas line.

Get the next slide.

So while schedules aren't finalized as it currently stands, for the temporary service adjustment for VRE, VRE trains will all be in service.

However, some trains will start and stop at Alexandria instead of Union Station.

VRE is also bringing back the Amtrak step-up program.

So if you are

a VRE multi-ride ticket holder.

You'll have more options.

You can use any of our Amtrak Virginia State supported trains if you have a multi-ride ticket for VRE.

And there may be some schedule refinements throughout the process.

While we're reevaluating, some schedules may be tweaked a little bit.

For Amtrak Virginia, we will be having four daily round trips.

as opposed to 5 in the Hampton Roads area, so 2 to Norfolk and 2 to Newport News.

We're implementing daily express bus service to and from Hampton Roads.

So, there will be a bus to and from Norfolk and a bus to and from Newport News.

So, an additional opportunity from Newport News.

Those buses will also stop at Virginia Beach.

So, there'll be 6 combined rail and bus round trips.

and some of the departure and arrival times for all our trains will shift slightly to, but all of the connectivity will remain.

We have created a site, a page on our website.

On our Plan My Trip service, there's a service guide and then VRE is also creating a page for the service changes and will also help you use your transit benefits because you may have to do a two seat ride to get into DC

utilizing WMATA.

We have more information to come, but we just wanted to preview this as we have this meeting scheduled.

So please stay tuned.

Thank you, Jerrica.

Okay, we'll shift into our open discussion.

Patrice Brooks with Tina Boyd & Associates is going to facilitate our question and answer.

Looks like we already have some questions coming in.

That's great.

We want to make sure that we hear from you.

All right.

Thank you, Meredith.

Thank you, team, for the presentation.

As Meredith said, we do want to get started and open the call for discussions.

I see that we do have a hand raised.

I'm going to go ahead and allow you to unmute yourself and ask your question.

If you don't mind just stating your name before you answer your question.

Hi, I'm Karthik Balasubramanian, the chair of the Multimodal Accessibility Advisory Council.

A lot of the sidewalks that are in and around the project area are

not ADA compliant already and I want to make sure that the construction never makes it worse.

We've seen with a lot of DDOT construction and a lot of DDOT approved construction, there's a lot of debris in the sidewalk and also they have a nasty habit of putting signs in the

in the sidewalks or on the sidewalks that kind of further constrain sidewalks.

So just kind of put yourself in the shoes of someone who's using a wheelchair and you completely see the sidewalk in a different way.

I'll initially respond to that.

I can tell you from an ADA accessibility standpoint, I'm not aware that we'll make it worse by any stretch.

In fact, whenever we do touch a sidewalk or a curb ramp or anything like that, temporarily we are required to redirect pedestrians accordingly to an accessible route.

And of course,

Final design does require us to upgrade and ensure ADA accessibility for the permanent condition there.

We do have the contractors on board here in this meeting, but we can certainly remind our construction teams that sidewalks should not be placed on the sidewalk so as to hinder pedestrian access.

I think that's a great point, and I don't know,

Yeah, just make sure that those signs don't end up with a sidewalk.

That's what I'm saying.

Because if so, please consult ADA standards.

There's 36 inches that need to be maintained at all times.

So like a sign should never constrain that.

Ever.

And I would just add, although I understand that the question is around temporary construction signage and ADA during construction,

that when it comes to the main avenue sidewalk we're actually improving the permanent condition there.

So currently there is a pinch point and that pinch point right under the railroad bridge is actually caused by the railroad bridge abutment itself where the sidewalk narrows down pretty significantly.

And because we're reconstructing that railroad bridge we're able to move that abutment back and widen that sidewalk.

And I don't unfortunately have the image in front of me, so I don't want to tell you how much we're widening it by because I don't have those numbers memorized.

But I can say in the permanent condition, it's a huge improvement because that's also part of the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail.

Alright, do we have any other questions?

It's currently 11.5 feet

I was going to say 26 off the top of my head, so I'm glad that you, I saw you intent over there.

I thought you might be able to grab those numbers, but that's great.

Yeah.

We're more than doubling the sidewalk there.

And like I said, it's also used as part of the trail connection.

And I just want to reiterate what Patrice is saying that if there are any events that you know of that are coming up or other programs or outreach that's being done by organizations in Southwest or related to Southwest that we can plug into to spread the word about our projects, please let us know.

We would like very much to be ahead with our message to let people know what's upcoming with the disruptions during construction so that no one's surprised or we can minimize the

All right, Meredith and team, we have another hand raised.

Yeah.

Hey Patrice.

Hey everybody.

I am wondering if you could do a kind of a visual aided article for the Southwester, like a regular monthly kind of thing.

That's an easy, you know, it won't cost anything.

And if you write it for them because they have no staff, it's guaranteed to be published.

That's a nice way to reach,

a big sector of Southwest, especially in the co-op community, which is really large in Southwest.

And I know going to ANCs and working with the bid, if there's an easy thing for us to share in our newsletter, we do get a really good open rate of like 40% in our newsletter every couple of weeks.

So anything that

And John, is there somebody at the Southwestern that we should reach out to?

I think their general email, but the woman who just took over SWANA, Southwest Neighborhood Assembly, is Beth Hall.

OK. And I think she would be happy to put you in touch with the Southwestern

person.

Okay, great.

Those are great suggestions.

We can certainly provide content for both you and for the Southwestern.

So when you're going across 395 North,

and you're coming up to the main avenue exit.

Is it exit four?

Naomi, I can step in.

I'm aware of exit four.

It takes you down to 9th street.

in the wharf.

That one is not closed.

Okay, sorry.

You want to go to slide 19?

Yeah, so I'll just highlight, this is the ramp that's closing is from northbound 14th street.

not northbound 395.

So that's the difference, I think.

Understood.

So then if I'm on 14th Street going northbound, I feel like what is the ramp there?

Where does that lead right now?

Does that lead down to the bottom of that pinch point that Naomi was talking about?

Correct.

It leads down to eastbound Main Avenue.

And it's not, quite honestly, it's not a very visible ramp.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Meaning there's not a lot of signs that indicate the ramp is there.

It's and there's a lot of foliage.

So it's actually kind of hidden.

So you have to really want to take that ramp

All right, thank you so much.

Do we have any other questions from the community advisory group on the project or are there any events that you think that we should attend or participate?

or any avenues where we can share project information such as the newsletter or listserv.

All right.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

I'll just say if you do have any questions or any comments for the team that you would like to share, you can always email us at info at longbridgeproject.com or contact us via our phone hotline

Thank you and we'll be back in touch.

Thanks everybody.