Long Bridge Project Community Advisory Group CAG Meeting - Washington, DC   1/23/2026

We are going to get started in one moment.

We're just letting a couple more folks join the call.

All right, so we are going to go ahead and get started with today's call.

I do just would like to note that during the presentation, all of the attendees mics will be muted at the end of the presentation.

We will have an opportunity for you all to unmute yourself and ask questions during the presentation.

If you would like to use the Q&A function or the chat function

to make comments or ask questions, we will do that and address your comments at the end of the presentation.

Thank you Patrice and welcome everybody to the

Long Bridge Project Community Advisory Group meeting for the DC side of the project.

This is our fourth virtual meeting and we greatly appreciate you being here.

Just as a very brief reminder, our community advisory group represents individuals in our community and organizations in our community that have a wide range of interests in our project.

Many are impacted or have other reasons to be involved in the CAG.

We're

Appreciate you being here and hearing our updates and providing us with feedback.

Some of the groups involved include the ANC, the business community, property owners and nonprofits, advocacy groups, the bid regional organizations, DDOT, WMATA, Amtrak, and many others.

So thank you for being here.

Let's start with introductions of our team.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Naomi Klein.

Good afternoon.

I'm Scott Crumley.

And I am Meredith Judy.

Good afternoon.

He is the construction manager for the Long Bridge project on the south side, which is the River and Virginia.

Next.

Today we'll spend just a very brief time giving you an update, or excuse me, giving you a brief overview of the Long Bridge project for anyone who's not familiar.

Most of you are, so we won't spend too much time on that.

We'll mostly focus on construction updates for DC, the river, and the Virginia side of the project.

We'll talk about upcoming traffic impacts, coordination with the Cherry Blossom and other spring festivals, ongoing public outreach activities, service changes,

related to Amtrak and VRE so that we can provide a window for construction, or excuse me, a period in which we have time for construction.

And then we'll leave plenty of time for questions and answers so that we can hear from you any concerns that you have and questions that you have and ideas for continued outreach in our community.

Yes, thank you.

Since this is our fourth meeting, I'm going to give a very brief overview of the project.

Hopefully everyone who's joining us is familiar with the project, but if this is your first time, then welcome.

I'm introducing the Long Bridge project.

The purpose of this project is to expand rail capacity so that we can separate freight rail from passenger rail, and that's going to allow us to introduce better rail service, including more Amtrak trains and VRA service on nights and weekends.

project goes across the Potomac River, which is currently a significantly large bottleneck on the East Coast.

South of the Long Bridge, the existing Long Bridge, is three tracks that is being expanded to four tracks through the Alexandria fourth track project.

North of this project at Union Station, there are four tracks all the way up the Northeast corridor, but right at the Potomac River at this bridge, there are only two tracks in the

existing Long Bridge, which is about 100 years old.

It is owned by CSX and VRE, Amtrak, and Freight Rail all go across this two-track bridge.

What that means is the orange juice that you're getting from Florida, it has to go across this two-track bridge as well as all of the passenger rail.

What this project is going to be doing is building new two tracks along the corridor.

It's actually five rail bridges and two bicycle and pedestrian bridges.

The bicycle and pedestrian bridge across the Potomac River is going to be a new facility that is completely separate from freight and from vehicles.

It will allow bikes and pedestrians to connect from the Long Bridge Aquatic Center over to bike lanes in East Potomac Park.

It will also touch down at the Mount Vernon Trail on the Virginia side.

and then the new two-track bridge will be owned by VPRA, the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, and will primarily serve passenger rail for Amtrak and VRE, while CSX will continue to own the existing bridge that will primarily serve freight rail, but all four tracks will be interoperable.

And then north of our project, there will be another project at L'Enfant Station,

that's going to continue those four tracks all the way up to Union Station.

So it will be a continuous four-track corridor from Alexandria all the way up the Northeast corridor.

Next slide, please.

So this project is so big that it has been split into two packages for the purposes of construction, a South package and a North package.

The South package deals with all of the infrastructure in Virginia, including

the rail bridge over the Mount Vernon Trail and the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

It also includes the rail bridge across the Potomac River and the bicycle pedestrian bridge across the Potomac River.

So the south package ends at the landing in East Potomac Park at Ohio Drive on the riverside.

From there is the north package.

and that picks up all the work that's in the district.

It starts again at the Potomac River in East Potomac Park.

It goes over I-395, over Ohio Drive on the Washington Channel side, a bridge over the Washington Channel, a bridge over Main Avenue.

and then it goes through and underneath the Maryland Avenue Overbuild.

That is where the Salamander Hotel and the Portals Development are, and it ends just south of L'Enfant Station.

Both of these packages, the south package is a design build, the north package is a progressive design build, and the construction on both is estimated to start in the middle of this year and then go through 2030.

You may already see work happening.

in the water and on land as we are preparing for bridge construction.

We're doing some early work, and I believe that Jordan is going to be able to speak more to that.

I am going to jump in just for a high second.

Rachel's going to unshare and reshare, so just give us like one pop.

We're going to pause for a quick moment.

Sure.

And then I did want to just say, if you do have any questions or anything that you would like to ask, please feel free to enter them into the chat or the Q&A function.

This meeting is being recorded and we will have these materials after the meeting for your review.

Okay, am I good to keep going?

Yes.

Okay, thanks, Petrie.

So, today's meeting is going to focus on the north package, the work that's happening in the district.

I do know that we're having another meeting that's going to be focusing on the south package and work that's happening in Arlington and Alexandria.

I believe that is next week.

And I think we may be talking about the end of this meeting.

So what you're seeing here are the rail bridges that, as we have come across the Washington Channel, this is the rail bridge over Main Avenue.

You can see that the current bridge is two tracks.

Because of the very limited space that we have, we actually have to take the existing bridge down and rebuild an entirely new bridge that is a four-track structure.

and what is there currently, which is not pictured, you're just seeing the renderings of what will be new, is that there is a pedestrian bridge that crosses Main Avenue.

It is privately owned by the businesses on the Maryland Avenue overbuild, so that portals development and the salamander, and that bridge will have to be taken down because it is in the footprint of where the new rail bridge will have to go.

and we are rebuilding that bridge.

It's currently not ADA accessible, but we will be adding a ramp that will make that bridge ADA accessible and it will be available to the public as it connects to the sidewalk on Main Avenue.

And it will continue to be owned by the current private owners.

So I think that's all for this slide.

And with that, I believe I'm turning it over to Jordan for construction updates.

I would like to hold questions to the end.

I do know the council member did have a question about Main Avenue activities.

So, Jean, if you would like to ask your question?

I'm good.

I'm very good.

Thank you.

That was just a side note to you, Patrice.

No problem.

Thanks, Naomi.

Yeah, again, my name's Jordan Doolittle.

I'm a project manager on the north package construction team.

As Naomi had mentioned, we have two different construction teams, so I'll just be going over the north package starting with the Main Avenue area.

So completed activities to date.

Many will know 14th Street access has been changed around a little bit to allow us some ingress-egress as well as

vehicular traffic for the 1331 Maryland Avenue apartments.

And same with Main Avenue, we've reduced to two lanes as well as closed Maiden Lane.

Our design manager, Scott Crumley, is going to go over that in a little more detail later on in the slideshow.

Also today, we've completed stormwater relocations along Maiden Lane, and you'll see that we've taken out some clearing along the railway embankment

and across the street at the Washington Marina parking area.

Some upcoming activities.

We have a fairly large rail support wall.

This is right behind the 1331 Maryland Avenue apartments.

As Naomi explained, we're widening the rail corridor from two tracks to four.

This retaining wall, as well as many others throughout the project, will help us do that.

for a few months now.

Naomi also mentioned some early works construction going on.

So a lot of this in the main avenue area has been under the Maryland Avenue overbuild performing some crash wall modifications.

So these are bringing things up to current standards against pretty old corridor.

So bringing everything up to current standards and that work will continue on for a few more months.

We have some ongoing utility coordination and relocations.

You'll see the top right picture.

Those are communication lines that we're in the process of relocating out of the way for the future bridge over Main Avenue.

We're in the process of relocating some sewer and also a test pile program.

So this is

You'll see a couple unique machines out in the work zone at Main Ave.

These are doing design verification and ensuring that our bridge foundations meet the requirements.

And then just a general note, our construction activities will continue to occur roughly 7 a.m. to 3.30 Monday through Friday, and we see that for the foreseeable future.

Next slide, please.

All right, so this is just an overview, kind of the area we're talking about.

There's a lot going on, but I want to focus, you know, really the activities I just spoke to.

So for everyone to get their bearings, the bottom left hand side of the screen, you'll see that the Tidal Basin and then the Thomas Jefferson Memorial would be just off screen there to the top of the screen.

If you continued on 14th Street, you'd run into the National Mall.

So hopefully everyone

Kind of gets a general understanding what we're looking at here.

But the light turquoise, almost white area in the center of the screen where the cursor is, that's the large retaining wall that we're just now getting started on.

Again, that it's right behind the 1331 Avenue apartment.

So you'll see a kind of flurry of activity over the upcoming weeks and months.

And then a large concrete retaining wall.

going in and you'll start to be able to see that railway corridor expansion.

And then the red rectangle just to the right of that, that's starting to get under the Maryland Avenue overbuild structure.

That's where those crash walls modifications will be ongoing as well.

Next slide, please.

So now shifting focus over into the East Potomac Park.

area of the north package.

Some completed activities earlier last year.

We did another design verification program.

These were installing large diameter drill shafts.

That'll support future bridges.

So we did some sacrificial test shafts and these are large diameter go roughly 150 feet into the ground.

So a lot involved to hold up those big train bridges.

Some other work we've done to date is more clearing along the railway embankment.

That's pretty noticeable driving through the area.

And then we've installed fence along the East Potomac Park ball fields.

That picture on the top right, if you go and been through the area recently, you'll see a large office complex being erected.

that will house our North Package construction team for the entirety of the project, roughly 50 or so professional staff supporting ongoing construction.

And then another note is we've closed the NPS parking lots, National Park Service parking lots, B and C. Those will be closed for the duration of the project, so roughly through 2030.

And then

some ongoing and upcoming activities.

You see a large crane was erected as well in East Potomac Park, and that'll be supporting the trestle installation.

So our trestle is a temporary work platform that the crane will actually drive out onto, and that's going to allow us to construct the new bridge over the Washington Channel.

And then just a general note,

if you've driven through East Potomac Park or any construction project, especially downtown, you'll notice flagmen and flagwomen that'll continue and kind of ramp up as well as we bring material and equipment in and out of the site.

So just be mindful of our flagmen and flagwomen trying to help manage traffic through the work areas.

Next slide, please.

And then just one last

Note here for the north package before I hand it over, we do have an upcoming traffic shift.

This is again in East Potomac Park on Ohio Drive.

And early March, we intend to close down a portion of Ohio Drive under the existing train bridge there.

You'll see in orange, we are going to maintain pedestrian traffic on the north side of Ohio Drive.

and we'll still maintain that westbound traffic movement along the eastbound lanes that's kind of designated there.

So you will still be able to get through there, but expect obviously with construction going on some potential minor delays just getting through that area.

Thanks.

Good afternoon.

I am the project manager for Long Bridge Rail Partners here on the Long Bridge South portion of the job.

I'm going to talk a little bit about the main river bridge construction, the current activities, what we anticipate the next six months looking like, and then talk a little bit about some of the aids to navigation we'll have on the water.

To start, over the past several months we've been out on the water and on the shores, both Virginia side and DC side, getting staging areas set up, performing scope validation work to confirm the design assumptions and everything else.

So we've been out there doing geotechnical borings and

and the like as part of that scope validation phase while we're working through our permits to get some of the larger, more intrusive activities going.

Coming into this year, we are going to, we still as part of the scope validation have our test pile program to do.

That's the last large item that we have to do as far as scope validation.

And those activities are starting here this month on both the Virginia shoreline and the DC shoreline.

So what you're going to see is bulkhead construction.

We're starting on the Virginia shoreline right now.

and that bulkhead construction will basically be our access points to the river to be able to get our large cranes onto the river to do test pile operations on the river.

We also have a test pile operation that we have to do yet in East Potomac Park on Abutment B, which is the connecting point with the north package right on the north side of Ohio Drive.

So over the next couple months building our bulkheads.

Once we get our bulkheads built, we will be able to get our cranes on the water so we can go out to do our water test piles.

Throughout the entire operation I just want to point out that the navigational channel will remain open.

You can see in the upper right hand corner of this slide just a very simple depiction of our work area which is kind of in the in the mint green and then the navigational channel.

We will have buoys out there

to warm boaters to keep out of those work areas.

We're going to have boats routinely moving around in those areas, barges moving around in those areas, cranes and the like.

So we want to keep as many boaters out of that work zone as possible.

So those work zones will be marked.

The navigational channel will be marked.

It will be a no wake zone that will be enforced.

And we anticipate putting the age to navigation

out there starting in April.

So over the next couple months it'll remain as it is today but going into the the spring season expect to have those aids the navigation in place and the and the channel clearly marked in the work zone clearly marked.

Again as far as the Potomac River investigation we've been out there doing our scope validation so

We've also done some underwater inspections of the existing fender system.

So you may have seen divers out there, things along those lines.

And we are also, on the Virginia side of things, getting into constructing our main yard.

And obviously this slide is just to kind of keep the public in the know.

We take safety very seriously.

We're going to be out there interacting on the water with the boating public throughout the course of construction.

So we've had a lot of great dialogue with local EMS, DC Fire in terms of what our job is going to look like, coordinating our operations so that they understand what's going on, notifications, how they can access the barges to quickly respond in the event of emergencies.

And this is going to be an ongoing conversation.

So it's been a great relationship.

So far we expect routine coordination.

We're going to do safety drills out there for man overboard, things along those lines.

Thanks, Scott.

Yep, thanks.

Thanks, Brian.

Thanks, Scott.

And just before everyone starts the movie, I just want to ensure everyone is muted so the video will play clearly.

Just mute yourself.

Thank you, Rachel.

Welcome.

This video explains upcoming traffic changes related to the Long Bridge Project and what they mean for drivers, bikers, and pedestrians in Southwest DC.

The Long Bridge Project is a major infrastructure investment connecting Virginia and Washington DC.

It includes five new rail bridges and two new pedestrian bicycle bridges.

Once complete, the project will alleviate one of the biggest rail bottlenecks on the East Coast.

improving reliability, expanding passenger and freight service, and strengthening connections between communities across the nation.

Temporary travel changes along Main Avenue will help maintain a safe work zone for drivers, cyclists, pedestrians, and crews during construction.

The westbound Main Avenue access road to northbound 14th Street is currently closed just past the entrance to the Salamander Hotel.

Drivers may detour via 12th Street or 15th Street to reach northbound 14th Street and Independence Avenue.

Pedestrian access on the westbound side of Main Avenue is detoured around the work zone along D Street and 12th Street.

To ensure continued access to 1331 Maryland Avenue, part of the access road has been temporarily converted into a two-way street.

which can only be entered from D Street.

On-street parking in this area is unavailable, but access to the 1331 Maryland Avenue parking garage and loading dock will remain open at all times.

These changes will be in place through 2030.

Another traffic change will take place along Main Avenue between the 14th Street Bridge overpass and the entrances to the Salamander Hotel and Washington Marina.

In this area, construction will require two alternating traffic patterns that shift the travel lanes.

While the schedule is subject to change, these alternating patterns will be in place through 2030.

The goal is to keep traffic moving as smoothly as possible while streamlining construction.

The first traffic pattern began in August 2025 and closed the dedicated right turn lane on westbound Main Avenue from just past the Salamander Hotel entrance to the 14th Street Bridge overpass, as well as the Maiden Lane access road.

During this pattern, two travel lanes remain open in each direction on Main Avenue.

Pedestrian access continues along eastbound Main Avenue across the pedestrian bridge between the Salamander Hotel and the Washington Marina.

On the westbound side, pedestrians are detoured around the work zone using D Street and 12th Street.

The second traffic pattern will shift lanes and close one eastbound through lane on Main Avenue from the 14th Street Bridge overpass to the Washington Marina entrance.

This will temporarily reduce the eastbound travel lanes from two lanes to one.

Westbound Main Avenue will continue to have two open travel lanes.

This second traffic pattern is expected to begin as early as summer 2026.

Please note that the ramp from northbound 14th Street to Main Avenue will be closed for most of construction.

Detour signs will be placed to guide drivers to alternate routes.

To help keep traffic flowing, the traffic signal at the end of the ramp on Main Avenue will be removed once the ramp is closed.

Safely accommodating pedestrians through the work zone is a top priority.

Along eastbound Main Avenue, an 8-foot-wide pedestrian path will remain open at all times and will be fully separated from traffic by concrete barriers.

During large-scale events, such as the Cherry Blossom Festival and the Fourth of July holiday,

An additional 8-foot-wide path will be added.

As part of the project, the existing pedestrian bridge between the Salamander Hotel and the Washington Marina will be replaced with a new, ADA-accessible pedestrian bridge.

To maintain pedestrian access during construction, a temporary pedestrian bridge will be built and will remain in place until the new, permanent pedestrian bridge is complete.

To support construction activities, additional short-term lane closures will occur during off-peak hours, overnight and on weekends.

Please visit

longbridgeproject.com.

Great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

So hopefully that gives you a good overview of what's forthcoming on Main Avenue.

We can dive into some additional details here.

So next slide.

This graphical look familiar was just shown in the video here and I just want to communicate again the westbound construction phase is in the dark green, eastbound is in the light green, and you can see how the color codes are specified down in the schedule below.

So currently we're in the westbound construction phase.

We do anticipate moving into the eastbound construction phase this summer.

I can confirm it will be after the 4th of July holiday.

So maybe late July, early August, somewhere in that timeframe.

And then we'll toggle back to the westbound construction phase sometime in early 2028.

Next slide.

So we've been, of course, collaborating with DDOT extensively on all of the maintenance of traffic activities and travel impacts

but our goal is safe access for motorists, bicyclists, and pedestrians.

If you're familiar with this corridor, there is a lot going on.

There is no shortage of traffic, congestion on Main Avenue, of course, the Salamander Hotel, the portals development, an active marina, and not to forget, passenger and freight train operations.

So there is a lot to maintain

throughout construction.

But our goal is safe access, and our goal has always been to streamline construction and minimize impacts.

There will be occasional nighttime lane closures, weekend detours and so forth, but we've really tried to be strategic with minimizing those.

The 14th Street access road will be closed to Main Avenue, as you heard in the video.

There's another slide upcoming where I'll talk a little bit more in detail about that.

But along Main Avenue, two lanes will always be maintained along the westbound direction throughout construction.

And then lastly, of course, we're focused on pedestrian traffic.

The pedestrian bridge crossing will always be maintained between the salamander and the marina.

And like you heard in the video, a temporary pedestrian bridge will be installed while the permanent bridge is constructed.

Next slide.

We've got a couple of graphics here that are kind of line or wiring diagrams to hopefully convey how many lanes are in each direction of Main Avenue.

So in the westbound construction phase, there'll be two lanes shown here in orange that are along westbound Main Avenue, and there will be two lanes along eastbound Main Avenue.

and then the pink line there confirms that pedestrian traffic will be maintained along the south side of Main Avenue.

Next slide.

The next phase is the eastbound construction phase and you can see that there are still two lanes on westbound Main Avenue shown here in orange.

but there is kind of rerouting, a shifting of those travel lanes, so they'll be split around the pier, the rail bridge pier.

There will be only one eastbound travel lane on Main Avenue in this phase, but there will be pedestrian traffic maintained along the south side of Main Avenue again, and there will always be barrier

in this phase between pedestrian traffic and the eastbound travel lane of Main Avenue.

Next slide.

So we wanted to highlight the closure of the northbound 14th Street ramp to eastbound Main Avenue.

This is a ramp that is not very well signed, honestly, but it is utilized by a good number of motorists.

This ramp will be closed throughout most of construction.

The existing traffic signal will be removed.

We're currently collaborating with the DDOT to confirm the detours that would be associated with this closure.

and I can assure you that plenty of advance notice will be provided prior to closing this ramp.

So there's no surprises.

Again, two more slides here, one showing the westbound construction phase here and pedestrian and bike accessibility.

The lines kind of in the pink white dashed are the designated bike ped access routes.

Like mentioned in the video, pedestrians and bikes on the north side of Main Avenue will use D Street and 12th Street around the portal's development.

But in this westbound construction phase, pedestrians can also stay on the south side of Main Avenue to go underneath 14th Street Bridge, the rail bridge near the marina.

So there will always be an eight-foot pathway there and then during peak periods like the Cherry Blossom Festival and Fourth of July, certainly Fourth of July this year, we're going to provide two eight-foot wide paths for that added capacity.

And similarly, next slide, on the eastbound construction, pedestrians will be maintained along the marina there.

So again, this is just a line diagram here to convey the number of travel lanes and pedestrian access through this corridor for both construction phases.

The left graphic there is the westbound construction phase.

The graphic on the right is the eastbound construction phase.

Probably a little hard to see here, but again, the materials will be disseminated after this meeting and you can take a closer look there.

Next slide.

Lastly, we are fully aware that construction disturbances will occur over the next four to five years here, and we're working hard to minimize and mitigate those disturbances.

On this graphic here is a number of the ways that we're doing that.

We're certainly adhering to the district's noise ordinance.

We're trying to limit our night work, not only for noise reasons, but safety reasons as well.

We're utilizing whisper quiet generators.

We have quite a bit of equipment monitoring vibration to ensure the structural integrity of adjacent buildings.

And we're utilizing drilling equipment as much as possible instead of pile driving.

So anyway, that's just a quick summary of how we're mitigating and minimizing construction disturbances.

All right, thank you, Scott.

We wanted to follow up regarding spring festivals 2026.

We've received a lot of questions about how will our work impact Cherry Blossom Festival and the 4th of July celebrations.

So we wanted to confirm, as Scott mentioned, that the current configuration is the configuration that we will have for this year 2026 Cherry Blossom and 4th of July festivals.

So we are

Continuing with coordination with the Chair of Boston Festival organizers with NPS and with Southwest BID regarding festival coordination.

The pedestrian bridge will, the current pedestrian bridge will continue to be functional during this year's festivities.

And when we do build, and when we do need to take down the current bridge, we will have a temporary bridge.

There will always be pedestrian access over Main Avenue.

Something we want to highlight is that currently parking lots B and C are closed in East Potomac Park.

We have a map there in the bottom right.

They are closed for the life of the project till 2030, and so they will be closed for those festivals this year.

So that's the main impact that we want to make sure everyone is aware of.

Next.

Other ongoing outreach.

We've continued with our door-to-door outreach.

We have regular traffic advisories that we distribute through our social, excuse me, through our website and in coordination with DDOT and NPS.

We continue to post informational videos on our YouTube channel.

We hope we'll continue to follow us there.

We have our next quarterly newsletter coming out later this week.

Always a great source of information.

We're continuing to table in the community.

Some of our most recent stakeholder outreach is a collaborative session that we had with Wharf retailers.

We attended their business meeting in November and we plan to return to talk with some of the most concerned retailers early this year.

And talk about ways that we can help them navigate this process.

We also have some outreach plan for the Mount Vernon Trail.

There are current impacts and upcoming detours that we want to make sure that

Trail users are aware of.

We'll be out participating in Winter Bike to Work Day on February 13th.

We'll be out in Gravelly Point Park tabling, talking about some of our upcoming Long Bridge construction activities, what that means for the Mount Vernon Trail.

We'll be raffling off Amtrak tickets, a lot of giveaways.

It should be a fun time.

And then we are ramping up for some public meetings in the spring.

So please stay tuned.

We'll have a preview of those materials for you at our next CAG meeting in likely April, and then we're looking at dates this spring for public meetings.

We will do one on the Virginia side at Long Bridge Aquatic Center, we hope.

One on the Virginia side and one on the DC side.

All right, thanks, Meredith.

Well, as you heard earlier, construction has started.

As a result, Amtrak and VRE service are making temporary service adjustments beginning this month.

Those service adjustments and work windows began January 12th and last week, January 12th last week, and will continue through the entire project completion in 2030.

Next slide.

So let's talk about those service impacts.

What did we aim for and what's the objective and what's it going to look like?

Our goal was to develop a service plan for a five hour outage for up to five years beginning here in January for the construction of primarily Long Bridge North.

We desire to maintain the best service performance for Amtrak, VRE and CSX.

Our desire was to maximize the work window productivity to make sure our contractors had enough time to really construct and get everything that they need done.

and we wanted to utilize that work window opportunity from Long Bridge to all of our TRV and Transforming Rail in Virginia projects.

We also have a lot of constraints.

Let me talk about those.

Primarily, it's the DC noise and vibration laws restrict heavy work in the daytime hours from Monday to Saturday for Long Bridge in DC proper.

We also have constraints of VRE, AM and PE,

PM peak times have the highest ridership.

Also, we have other outside sources that are impacting our schedules.

I think we did.

I could wrap up the constraints here.

Washington Union Station is most congested in the afternoon, so that's a constraint for us.

I am back.

It froze.

I'll let you pick up.

This sounds good.

We've got the service impacts and they're affecting downstream, Amtrak Virginia, Amtrak long distance, and the Carolinian.

We're aiming for those work windows primarily between 830 and 1 30 PM.

Next slide then.

So, as I mentioned, those service changes began last Monday.

For Amtrak, we've got all current routes will continue, but with temporary adjustments.

We've adjusted schedules for Amtrak Virginia trains primarily between Hampton Roads, which would be Newport News and our Norfolk stations in Washington, DC.

We've instituted temporary bus service between Hampton Roads and DC to replace that morning train out of Norfolk.

It serves Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Newport News stations.

We also adjusted schedules for Amtrak long distance trains traveling through Virginia.

Finally, for VRE trains, there's been temporary schedule adjustments on both Fredericksburg and Manassas lines.

No trains are being eliminated.

Morning and evening trains will continue running

but some trains will start or end at Alexandria instead of running through to Washington Union Station.

Next slide.

Finally, we've created a page dedicated to service disruptions on our website.

We've conducted lots of rider outreach at stations in Virginia, including Richmond, Norfolk, Alexandria, and Washington Union Station, and we look forward to kind of keeping the public informed and make sure we're going to get that word out there.

Thank you so much, Christine, for sharing those updates with us and as well just addressing some of those concerns about the service interruptions.

So here's how you can stay up to date with us.

We do have a project website as well as social media and a project hotline where you can call and leave your questions.

For those calling in, the number is 202769.

1808.

And then for the website is www.longbridgeproject.com.

And we do have an email subscription notice for notices and two-week look-aheads that we do use to send out to the community.

And that is info at longbridgeproject.com.

We'll now open up for questions.

We just want to have an open discussion with the team.

Just any information that you can share

with us in, you know, anything that you see in the community that you want to share, alert, now's the time, any upcoming events or opportunities for the year that you want to make us aware of, where we could either come out in table and participate, participate in, or just for our awareness as we, construction progresses in the area.

I'll now open it up for questions to the team.

We do have a question in the chat from Commissioner Fast.

It will be critical to know exactly when the main Avenue exit will be closed as many Southwest residents use that to get to their homes.

How will that be disseminated?

And Naomi, I can kick it off.

We will have plenty of prior notice as Scott mentioned.

I can let Scott speak more specifically to the timing, but we will have onsite signage.

We will be reaching out to the ANC to help us distribute that information to residents.

We will, of course, be using our social media, our newsletter and all of our email distribution lists to keep people informed.

And of course, we'll be using our DDOT.

We'll be distributing

Commissioner Fash, you are able to unmute yourself and ask your question verbally if you would like.

Yeah, I'm so sorry.

I appreciate the answer to the first question.

I obviously put that in before the slide came out, but

My question actually is not with residents of Southwest, but the folks that come into Southwest or that need to get east on Main Avenue to go to IAE Audi Field, Nats Park.

How is the communication to those individuals?

Are you working with the teams?

Are you, you know, to send out that information?

And because the parking

for the cherry blossoms, the construction that's in East Potomac Park.

It has been closed for a while, but folks use a lot of that for parking during cherry blossom and I'm assuming will also be crowded during the 4th of July celebration.

So are you coordinating with, I don't know, the White House, Federal, just so that the rest of the world knows what's going on?

That's my question.

Do you want to speak to that first, Meredith?

One note I'd like to make is that we are working really closely with the navigation apps.

So many people rely on those days, and so we're making sure that that information is correct and up to date.

Yeah, that's what I was going to say as well is the Commissioner Fast Point.

When people are traveling in and they don't live there, they're often using things like Google Maps, Apple Maps, Waze,

So we're going to be working with all of those apps to make sure that they know what those detour routes are, that when people are putting in what their destination is, that it's taking them there in the most efficient way possible, that they know what those road closures are.

Obviously, additionally, for people who might not be using those, we're going to have the road signage that you see when there are closures, when there are detours directing people on the street.

As for the Cherry Blossom Festival on the 4th of July, we work really closely with the National Park Service.

We talk with them almost on a daily basis at this point.

We are actually, the project has dedicated time with their staff just committed to this project.

And we know what large events the 4th of July and the Cherry Blossom are, and with this year being the 250th anniversary, we're in very close coordination with them to make sure

that the areas that people travel the most are accessible and clearly signed and communicated through our website, through social media, through MPS's website, through DDOT's travel advisories.

And then additionally, we have a monthly meeting with all adjacent projects in the area from basically every project that you can imagine from DC Water to DDOT to private businesses.

to make sure that we are all coordinating on any possible road closures or impacts to traffic so that we're not overlapping and inconveniencing the public in that way.

So hopefully that's a helpful answer.

Well, yes, and I give you credit for all that you are doing.

You know, traffic is bad.

regardless, right, during these events.

So now you're amplifying it.

And I don't know how much communication or all the communication that you plan to do will mitigate what will eventually happen on those events.

So again, I just needed to verbalize that this is really hugely impact for those two major events that are going to bring people not just from

you know, this area, but from all over the country here.

And I understand people use Google Maps.

I use it all the time.

But people still who may have come here once five years ago, you know, aren't going to use that and think they know exactly how to get to where they want to be and where they want to park, and they're not going to be able to get there.

So anyway, thanks for your response.

Thank you so much Commissioner for joining us.

We have another question.

I see you have your hand raised, Ms. Diane Groomes.

Yes, ma'am.

Good afternoon.

I'm Diane.

I work at the district board and thank you to this team that did come out to our retail meeting.

That was very, very valuable.

And thank you for finally fixing the issue about me getting notifications on the project.

I always have an issue with that.

Just a couple of things.

I appreciate Commissioner Fast's question because that's part of my question too.

Some of the locals know how to get around, but again, tourists, visitors.

My big question is, are we reaching out to

like the trucking companies, like the delivery companies, because I'm not sure how the truck traffic that's coming, we had a meeting with DDOT actually a walk through yesterday on Main Avenue, how like the Anthem loading trucks for the vans, the buses coming in for tours, also like delivery for retail, like the restaurants, loading for events.

they're going to be all pushed to that 9th Street corridor.

We're afraid 9th Street, which is a very small roadway turning onto Main on the right hand side, like that traffic pattern, is that being studied and how will we divert some of that?

Because it's just going to be a major cluster at 9th and Main.

I'm not sure we were asking about has that really been considered because everyone's going to be pushed to come off that other ramp.

to come down 9th Street and make a left or a right, which is bad traffic already, like the Commissioner said, so I don't know if there's outreach for that.

I appreciate that you pushed the timeline after July 4, so thank you.

That's been kudos.

I walk that area every day.

I appreciate what I see and the information.

We have had no noise issues.

We did have a power outage one time.

So that is just one thing.

If there is an issue with a power line hit or water main break during this, who gets notified so we can prepare our retailers when their water power is off if that happens?

Because we just had to walk and find out where the source was last time.

If there's an answer to that,

Emergency vehicles when Main Avenue gets down to one lane, you know, when it comes in, it sprouts off to South Capital and then to the right is Main Avenue.

It's usually a traffic jam now during rush hour.

I just fear our emergency vehicles, are they being sold not to even come near that area?

to come down to the wharf or southwest area.

Your main events such as Cherry Blossom and Fourth of July will be marathons.

We have a lot of marathons that come through Haines Point, East Potomac Park, the wharf area.

Are they going to be rerouted or rescheduled somewhere else in the city during this time?

and then we did ask, and I was just wondering if when you do come back for a Wharf retail meeting, a lot of retailers, and us at the Wharf, being selfish, how do people know that we're still open?

You know, they're suffering a lot at restaurants.

retailers along Southwest are suffering already with the bad winter or the federalization.

But we were asking if signage could be put out that businesses operating and they were wondering if they could put their little names or their restaurants.

I know you were going to ask the federal partners about that along the way for wayfinding.

I'll just jump in briefly to say that in terms of your question regarding to the analysis and so forth of looking at 9th Street and the detours, that is absolutely being analyzed.

In fact, the north design builder team is currently updating all the traffic analyses for a lot of these road closures and detours and so forth.

And so as soon as that

is submitted to us.

We'll be reviewing it.

Of course, DDOT will be reviewing that as well, and we'll collaborate together with them, focused on minimizing impacts.

Correct.

Understand?

And I can jump in as well.

You asked a lot of questions, all of them very good.

I will admit I did not write them all down as they were coming out.

So hopefully somebody got that list, can share it with us that we can make sure that we are thoroughly addressing all the questions.

What I will say is we are absolutely out there doing traffic counts, right?

So to your point of if something is not working effectively, we can regroup and we can address that, right?

it's not like, oh, we've put this MOT in place and nothing can change for the next five years, right?

And that's part of having these meetings every quarter that this really is a collaborative process.

If something is not working and there's a way that we can address it to make improvements, then of course we are open to doing that.

I will say that the maintenance of traffic plan that we're putting out there is something that we've been working with DDOT with, including their freight group,

to your point you asked about freight for several years.

It has to go through their permitting and approval process, which includes review by their traffic team, by their major project team, by their freight team.

And again, just like the National Park Service, we're in contact with them on almost a daily basis.

And also like the National Park Service, they have dedicated staff time to serving this project.

I think we understand that there are going to be impacts, right?

And

and I don't want to minimize that.

I also, you know, always want, and I know that everybody on this call understands that, to remind people of the goal, which is to get more people off of the roads and onto passenger rail, right?

And that is, this is what's going to make that possible.

There's a lot of people I think out there who would say, I would take the train if it were more convenient, right?

If it lined up with my schedule, if it came more often, if it came on nights, if it came on weekends,

And I understand, again, that does not minimize the impact that you are going to feel, that the businesses are going to feel for the next five years.

But I do think that the ripple effect that this will have on improving access to these businesses is going to be tenfold in the long term.

But I do, I definitely understand your point to make sure that people are aware that the businesses are open and anything that we can do really to partner with the wharf

in doing that and getting the word out, whether that's through our website, our social media, any kind of partnership that we can do.

In full transparency, I have not had a chance to look into the ability to put private business signage on our fencing.

I do know in certain areas we had signage on fencing that we had to take down.

I think we talked about that in the meeting in person.

but that's absolutely something I know that is on our radar that we will definitely get you a response to.

And I'm sorry I don't have a response on this call, but I know that that was something that you have brought up.

And I think around, I think you had asked some questions around cherry blossom and the 4th of July.

Again, we're coordinating very closely with the National Park Service to make sure that those events are able to be executed, that people can get to where they're going, that those events are

successful for visitors and residents and the businesses nearby.

I know that was a very big umbrella answer to some detailed questions.

Definitely, if you have these questions written down, you want to send them to us and we can get you some questions back in writing or set up a separate call.

I think we're going to have a follow-up meeting with the Wharf community, so definitely we can bring

some more specific answers to each of those questions.

Yeah, that I mean very appreciated.

Besides, like I said, the cherry blossom of July 4th, but kudos that you're keeping what we have now available.

Yes, good question.

Let me speak to that.

So not just cherry blossom and 4th of July, but we've actually worked with NPS to get a scheduled all their events for the year that they are expecting.

There are some that are of course unexpected.

They don't know every event for the 250th anniversary, but as those come up they are notifying us of those that we can make sure that we are out of the way for marathons, right?

Like we're not going to stop a marathon.

No, I was going to say the same, that we have the full schedule for the year of what they know from NPS and we're coordinating, as Naomi said, regarding all events that NPS is aware of.

And yes, there certainly are a lot of marathons.

I think some of the other questions that we heard, which we can circle back, as Naomi said, in more detail were

Emergency vehicles, will they know which routes to take or which alternate routes?

Because some may be more crowded now.

How are people informed about power and water issues and who is informed?

Sure, I can speak.

Yeah, so first responders similar to the south team.

I know we didn't have a slide on the north side, but we have been coordinating

extensively with local EMS and fire.

We do have an on-site meeting planned for this quarter to come out once our office trailer is set up, go over some of our muster points in the event of emergency, but also just routinely share these upcoming traffic shifts and closures, make sure they're

Sure.

And then any, so if there were to be a utility strike, so we would immediately notify the utility provider.

They are extremely responsive, you know, coming out.

And then typically they will notify their, you know, end users of the utility, depending on, you know, the severity of the outage.

So I'm not aware of any significant issues to date.

Okay, thank you.

I know that we're out of time here.

If there are other questions, please email us at info at longbridgeproject.com.

One other item I just wanted to note with Diane's question is that we would like to highlight some of the businesses in the area as part of our newsletter.

We've already highlighted the National Landing Bid and the WRF as a whole.

We would like to highlight other businesses in the area as a way to promote and be a partner throughout construction.

So please keep in touch with ideas on that.

All right, how to stay connected.

Thank you for pulling that up, Patrice.

Our website, longbridgeproject.com.

Our email, you can sign up for our newsletter by emailing us at info at longbridgeproject.com.

And of course, we have a 24 hour hotline available.

Thank you very much for joining today and we look forward to seeing you next time.