Long Bridge Project: Community Advisory Group Meeting #5   4/27/2026

Good afternoon.

Thank you so much for joining us for today's community advisory group meeting for the Long Bridge Project in Washington, DC.

We'll be getting started just momentarily.

Mhm.

A few more minutes to let everyone get on and join us for today's meeting.

All right, I guess we'll go ahead and get started.

All right, so I'll go ahead and hand it off to Meredith Judy, who will begin today's community advisory group meeting.

All right, thank you, Patrice, and good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome to our fifth community advisory group meeting for the PRA's Long Bridge project with a focus on DC.

As a reminder, our community advisory groups are designed to maintain ongoing coordination and communication with leaders in our project area.

This includes residential groups, business groups, regional organizations, advocacy groups, elected officials and staffers and others, and we meet on a quarterly basis for project updates and to hear your thoughts.

So let's start by introducing our team.

Let's go on across the top.

We have Naomi Klein here.

Scott.

Sure.

Good afternoon, everyone.

Welcome.

My name is Scott Crumley.

Yes, my name is Tom O'Rourke.

Good afternoon.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Sean Samick.

I am a project manager for Long Bridge Rail Partners.

Great.

Thank you.

And I forgot to introduce myself.

I'm Meredith Judy.

I'm the Community Affairs Manager with Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

All right, next slide.

Thank you.

Our agenda today includes a very brief refresher on the Long Bridge project for anyone new to these meetings.

And then we'll spend the majority of our time providing construction updates for you on the progress in DC, in the river and in Arlington, Virginia.

Naomi?

Hi Meredith, thank you.

And to reintroduce myself, my name is Naomi Klein.

I am a manager for stakeholder engagement and permitting on the Long Bridge project.

And can we go to the next slide please?

Great, thank you.

This is just a little bit about the Long Bridge Project.

On the left-hand side, you're going to see a picture that includes a rendering of the two new bridges being built across the Potomac River.

In fact, the project is five bridges.

So while it's called the Long Bridge Project, there are many more than one bridge.

So from here, you can see from left to right the 14th Street Bridge.

That's actually the northbound I-395 lanes.

the LaMotta Yellow Line Bridge, and then the new bike pedestrian bridge, which we are building as mitigation for the project's impacts to national park resources, the new Long Bridge that we're building, and then the existing bridge.

So just a brief reason of why are we building this project.

Back when this project was envisioned, there really was not capacity across the Potomac River when it came to rail.

So there are three modes that share the existing Long Bridge and that's CSX Freight, VRE, and Amtrak Intercity Passenger Rail.

The current bridge was at 98% capacity.

For the VRE Peak trains, there was essentially standing room only.

And so there really was a need to expand passenger rail capacity to be able to unlock new service.

So north of here, there are three tracks.

that's going to be increased to four tracks through a VRE project that's also doing station upgrade, that lawn font that goes from the north end of Long Bridge all the way up to Union Station.

And then south of here, there's an Alexandria fourth track project that will increase the tracks to four tracks all the way

all the way south of Alexandria, about six miles.

But right here, there are only two tracks crossing the Potomac River.

So I think everyone's pretty familiar with the project.

We can go to the next slide.

So for the purposes of this project, as I said, it's five bridges, five rail bridges, and then two pedestrian bridges.

We have, for the purposes of construction, separated the project into two contracting packages, which we call a north package and a south package.

Today we are here primarily to talk about the north package.

The south package are the bridges across the Potomac River, both the bike pedestrian bridge and the rail bridge.

So the south package covers from Arlington,

to the abutment facing the Potomac River in East Potomac Park on what we would call the south side.

The north package then picks up, crosses East Potomac Park, goes over I-395, and the WMATA portal crosses over Ohio Drive, over the Washington Channel, over Main Avenue, and then through the Maryland Avenue overbuild, and then connects to that VRE project.

So construction for the south package is starting mid this year through 2030, and the north package has already started spring of last year through 2030.

So you may have already seen us out and about getting ready for that full bridge construction, doing a lot of preparatory work, and you will continue to see us until project completion through 2030.

We can go to the next slide.

and this shows you the Main Avenue rail bridge and a new pedestrian bridge that will be built across Main Avenue.

There is currently a bridge there.

It is privately owned by a nonprofit that is made up of all of the businesses on the Maryland Avenue overbuild.

The current bridge is in the way of where the new four-track structure needs to go, so it will have to be

taken down.

During that time, there will be a temporary pedestrian bridge that will be in place for the duration of construction and then what you're seeing are renderings of the new pedestrian bridge that will be built at the end of that construction.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought here.

One of the improvements of the new pedestrian bridge is that there will be this ramp that you're seeing, which will make it ADA accessible.

The current pedestrian bridge has only a stair connection.

All right.

Fantastic.

So we have three main areas of the project, not to be confused with the main avenue, but the area that's most visible is the work at Main Avenue depicted here.

So activities that we've completed, a host of utilities that run

adjacent to the foundations of the new bridge substructure or foundation, so we have to relocate them.

What you see here is we've relocated stormwater, sanitary sewer water line, and gas line.

PEPCO is currently relocating a power line, and we have some communication work related to Verizon and other fiber optic carriers that we're working on.

You've also noticed that we've removed a lot of the vegetation and growth that grew along the embankment so that we can make the modifications.

We do have ongoing utility coordination.

Third party entities are PEPCO, Washington Gas, DC Water and Verizon.

Going north of Main Avenue, we've done some work in what's called the Maryland Overbuild.

And that's an area that is between the portal structures.

We've modified some crash walls there.

And then also in preparation for the New Bridge Foundations, we're performing what we call micropiles or small diameter drilled shafts that have some small compact tracked equipment that installs

foundation elements down to what's called decomposed rock or cemented soils below the ground there.

So you can see our work zones.

The orange hatched area is the area on Main Avenue.

And then the area that's kind of aquamarine is an access area for some drill rigs that we're using to install structural elements for a retaining wall that's going to widen the railroad embankment as a result of those activities.

And that's also the access up to the Maryland overbuild.

So those activities necessitate some modifications to the maintenance and protection of traffic, both vehicular and pedestrian.

We have taken up a presence for our field office in East Potomac Park, which is the image to the upper right-hand side.

Adjacent to that, we've done utility work in Ohio Drive Southwest East, and that's in preparation for installing new foundations for the replacement structure at Ohio Drive.

Also in preparation for the replacement structure at Washington Channel, we're installing a temporary structure over the water that we call a trestle.

It involves driving piles into the Washington Channel, framing out with structural steel, putting crane mats on it, and then we will be employing heavy equipment out on that structure in order to install the foundations and substructure for the Washington Channel Bridge, right?

We do have some follow-on activity installing what we call supportive excavation or SOE into the existing embankment on each side of Ohio Drive.

We've also performed some utility work that stretches from I-395 to the Washington Channel.

Next.

Okay.

Um, you, you may have noticed that there's, if you've been in East Potomac Park, there's been a slight shift in some of the traffic and that what it's taking, uh, both lanes of traffic and shifted it to the, what we would call project south or, um, the, as you're entering into the park, uh, uh, both lanes are in the right-hand Bay underneath the existing bridge.

And that's so that we can work on the utility relocation, um, in the future,

We have some follow-on utility relocation.

We will switch that, but that's not going to happen in the near future.

But right now, we're maintaining two lanes of traffic through the Ohio Drive structure.

Or Long Bridge South.

Okay.

So over the past few months, we've been focusing on building our site access.

This started with a bulkhead between the Wamata and CSX Long Bridge on the Virginia side, which is now serving as our access point to the river for us to move people and equipment onto the water that's shown in the top right photo.

From there, we were able to assemble our initial barge platforms that will support our crews during construction.

After these barge platforms were built, we were able to mobilize our first Cabelco 300-ton crane, which is a large yellow crane for those that are familiar with the equipment that's currently out on the water.

We also have crews installing turbidity curtain, which helps maintain water quality while the earth disturbance activities are going on on the water.

and for those who have traveled on Ohio Drive in East Potomac Park, you may have noticed about two weeks ago, we started building our first DC access point, which is another bulkhead between the Wamata Yellow Line and CSX Long Bridge.

These will be used to access on and off the water on the DC side of the project.

Next, please.

In Virginia, we started building our site access from Gravelly Point into our work area, which is a little further upriver.

Over the next few weeks, we'll implement a detour of the Mount Vernon Trail, which will divert traffic around our work area.

This relocated trail is represented by a dashed green line on the map on the right.

We expect to implement this in the middle or end of May, and we'll provide advanced notification prior to implementing the detour.

Next, please.

About a month ago, we started our test pile program on water.

We installed our 42-inch and 36-inch test piles in the river and are currently preparing to perform statinamic pile testing.

The statinamic test confirms the foundation performance prior to full bridge construction.

The statinamic test will be a controlled charge, which will create a noise resembling an explosion.

The first of the

We've also been working hard to establish our lay down and field office locations along Boundary Channel near the Long Bridge Aquatic Center.

Our field trailers are officially operational and today our crew started building our access from the loop ramp location down near the Aquatic Center and to the southernmost abutment of the railroad bridge.

This work requires some short-term traffic impacts which will be coordinated in advance to the affected groups.

Next, please.

On the water, we're about three weeks away from implementing our PATON plan, which consists of buoys and signs that delineate the work area and guide recreational boaters through a designated channel to keep boaters and workers safe.

Think of this as a temporary traffic control plan, but for on the water.

The goal is to keep recreational boaters away from the construction operations.

As we move towards summer, our presence on the water will increase with additional barges and equipment being mobilized to the water.

All right, Sean, I think I'm taking over for you at this point.

Yeah, we wanted to cover some upcoming travel impacts here.

And if you've traveled along Main Avenue in recent weeks, I'm sure you've seen a lot of work.

There's a lot more coming.

and wanted to share about the two primary construction phases along Main Avenue here.

What's shown in the upper left graphic is the westbound construction phase of Main Avenue where we're working on the Salamander and 1331 area on that side of Main Avenue.

And then the other phase is the eastbound construction phase.

which is working on the kind of southern part of Main Avenue within the Marina parking lot area.

And we tried to color code the westbound and eastbound with the dark green and the teal and correspond that to a schedule down below.

So you can see currently we are in the westbound construction phase, which is the dark green,

and you can see that runs till basically mid 2026.

But we intend on switching to the eastbound construction phase late spring or summer this year, and then we will be in that construction phase until early 2028, when we will convert back to the westbound construction phase

for a little over a year and then go back to the eastbound construction phase.

So I just wanted to highlight those up front that that's what's coming along Main Avenue.

Obviously, there is a lot going on in the Main Avenue corridor here, but our goal is safe access for all road users.

So for motorists, bicycles, pedestrians, we are working to streamline construction and minimize impacts despite

all the high level of traffic volumes in the area.

Of course, the hotel, the portals development, the marina is still an active marina.

And of course, there's a lot of train operations using the two existing tracks, both CSX and VRE and Amtrak.

There's a lot going on, but our number one goal is safe access.

There will be occasional nighttime lane closures and some weekend detours.

I'm going to talk a little bit in a couple slides here about the 14th Street ramp closure that's upcoming.

But I do want to emphasize we're always going to maintain two lanes along westbound Main Avenue throughout construction.

And we're also going to maintain pedestrian access across the Main Avenue pedestrian bridge at all times and will be

constructing a temporary pedestrian bridge near the marina entrance in order to maintain that pedestrian access.

So currently, like I mentioned, we're in the westbound construction phase, and we've tried to color code the number of lanes in each direction here.

So you can see in the dark green color, those are the two travel lanes.

along westbound Main Avenue.

And in the teal color, we have the two eastbound travel lanes on Main Avenue.

And then in the hot pink is the pedestrian traffic.

We're currently maintaining that existing sidewalk through the corridor here that runs in front of the Marina parking lot.

The eastbound construction phase will realign the two westbound travel lanes along Main Avenue.

We will reduce eastbound Main Avenue to one lane, but we will still maintain pedestrian traffic along the eastbound travel lanes.

Pedestrian traffic will be separated by a traffic barrier and some screening.

between the vehicular traffic lane and the pedestrian sidewalk there.

So I wanted to share a little bit about the northbound 14th Street ramp closure that's upcoming.

This is the ramp that takes you to eastbound Main Avenue there, basically between 14th Street and the rail corridor.

That ramp will be closed late summer or some, I'm sorry, late spring or summer this year.

We're still collaborating with DDOT on the exact timing for this ramp closure and the eastbound construction phase.

But when that ramp is closed, that existing traffic signal will be removed and that will help improve the flow along eastbound Main Avenue.

So we're still collaborating with DDOT on the detour for that work.

I'll show you that here in a moment.

But it hasn't been finalized yet.

But I will emphasize that advance notice will be provided so that there aren't surprises about when this ramp will be closed.

So here is that proposed detour route.

Again, it's a proposed detour route.

We're still collaborating with DDOT.

It's anticipated to be closed late spring, summer, but basically the detour route is shown in kind of the bright green color here.

So motorists would continue north on 14th Street and then turn right or eastbound on Independence Avenue and then turn right or southbound on 12th Street.

and that will reconnect with eastbound Main Avenue.

And if this detour route ends up not causing too much havoc, it may remain closed until 2030 throughout the entire length of construction.

But again, that's still under discussion at this point.

But I think the next slide will outline an alternative detour route

for motorists that are bound for the Wharf DC Fish Market area, which is right after, right just east of the Marina parking lot there.

A little harder to see on this, but the blue detour route would direct motorists to continue northbound on 14th Street, make a right on C Street, a left on 12th Street, a left on Independence, and then a left on Ralph Wallenberg.

and that will lead them back to eastbound Main Avenue.

Next slide.

In terms of pedestrian and bike accessibility during the eastbound construction phase, we will always be maintaining pedestrian access along the eastbound travel lane

of Main Avenue.

If you look at the upper left graphic there, it's that kind of hot pink and white dotted line that kind of goes around the orange work area there.

Pedestrian access will be maintained at all times there.

It will be eight feet wide, but during the heavy demand season of the cherry blossom season and 4th of July, access will be widened to be two

Eight foot wide paths.

They may not be side by side based on the construction that will be occurring in the orange area there, but there will be basically double the capacity outside of those times.

Next slide.

So this is just a summary of the travel conditions along Main Avenue for both construction phases.

The left graphic is the westbound construction phase, which is our current configuration.

Again, the lines and so forth are intended to show the number of travel lanes or where pedestrian and bike traffic would be located.

We'll always maintain two travel lanes in each direction during that westbound construction phase.

Then during the eastbound construction phase,

Again, the westbound travel lanes will be realigned, will reduce eastbound to one travel lane, but will always maintain that pedestrian walkway along the eastbound travel lanes in both construction phases.

So I know that was a lot, and I hope you're not colorblind, but hopefully that is helpful.

And we know that there will be construction disturbances over the next four to five years of construction, but we are taking

action to minimize those impacts.

And here's just a smattering of a number of items that we're keeping on the front burner, adhering to the district's noise ordinance, making every effort to reduce night work, both from a noise and safety standpoint, using whisper-quiet generators and so forth, or being mindful of our backup alarms.

There's some new ones available that

regulate the volume based on ambient conditions, and a couple other items as well.

So we're well aware that construction causes impacts.

But again, our goal is to streamline construction, try to get in and out as quickly as possible to minimize those impacts.

Thank you, Scott.

VPRA is very attentive to the fact that 2026

brings not only our annual 4th of July events, but also the America 250 celebrations.

So we want to assure you that we're coordinating carefully with NPS, the Southwest Business Improvement District, the Wharf and other organizations.

The existing pedestrian bridge across Main Avenue will remain open throughout these upcoming events.

Down the line later in our process,

Project.

We will be building a temporary pedestrian bridge across Main Avenue that will replace this bridge, but there will be pedestrian access at all times throughout construction.

And for this year, the existing pedestrian bridge will be in place for 4th of July and America 250 celebrations.

Also, just a reminder that the parking lots B and C on NPS land are closed throughout construction.

Next slide please.

We also want to let you know about our outreach activities that we have ongoing.

We continue that outreach throughout winter and early spring since we last spoke with you.

Some of the highlights have included a joint Potomac River boathouses meeting to discuss upcoming Long Bridge construction impacts on the navigation channel.

We had a tabling event in March on the Mount Vernon Trail in anticipation of some of those upcoming changes and impacts.

near Gravelly Point.

We have a new video for test pile driving on the Potomac River that's on our website.

We attended Bloomaroo at the Wharf as a way to reach out to the community.

And we've been receiving quite a few inquiries through our email and phone hotlines.

We have an ongoing

We have ongoing weekly traffic advisories that we send out through NPS and DDOT channels and we now have an ongoing monthly marine advisory that we send out and all these materials are also posted on our website.

I do want to highlight our new monthly construction e-blast.

It goes out to our newsletter list and it's very brief highlights about what

has happened in the last month and what's upcoming in terms of construction activities.

It's quick to read, but just lets you know what to expect coming down the line in terms of construction on our project.

If you're not already on our email newsletter list, I highly recommend that you join.

You can just email us at info at longbridgeproject.com.

Next slide please.

We are aware that the businesses in the vicinity of Main Avenue in particular are concerned about customer and delivery access during construction of Long Bridge.

As Scott mentioned, we're developing detour routes and working with DDOT to finalize those.

As we implement those, we want to support the businesses in distributing this information to all of those who are impacted, customers, delivery companies, et cetera.

and we will be in touch with all of the mapping companies to make sure that they are aware and it's reflected in the mapping apps.

And then we have a few other efforts underway that we plan to implement to support the businesses during construction.

We plan to install a clear, easy to follow signage to remind customers that businesses are open throughout construction.

We will be installing signs along the detour routes to help with navigation.

We're launching a new newsletter feature for both our Long Bridge project newsletter and our Amtrak Virginia newsletter that will highlight businesses.

And it's a way to advertise the businesses and remind people that those businesses are still ongoing during construction.

The first business that we will highlight is Jesse Taylor Seafood in the Fish Market area at the Wharf.

And that will go out in our May newsletters.

Also want to note that we're partnering with the Southwest BID and the WRF to support access and visibility to the businesses.

On this slide you can see some of the signage that the Southwest BID recently posted in the lower right hand corner of the slide to highlight how to access highlights in the area, including the businesses in Southwest.

Next slide please.

We want to make sure you know about our upcoming events.

In particular, our spring public meetings.

Please help us spread the word.

We have two spring public meetings coming up, one in Arlington on Thursday, May 2nd and one in DC on May 12th.

Both run from 5.30 to 7.30 with a presentation at 6 PM, including a question and answer session.

We will have displays and videos and of course our presentation slides that highlight the

latest construction updates, and we will be there.

Members of our technical team, our outreach team, many, many of those involved in the Long Bridge project will be there to answer your questions and engage with you.

We also have Bike to Work Day coming up on Friday, May 15th, and we will be at six different locations, two in DC, two in Arlington, and two in Alexandria, so we hope that you will stop by to see us.

It's always a great event, a great way for us to engage with the community and really have time to talk about the projects.

Some other upcoming events are outreach on the Mount Vernon Trail associated with the gravelly point detour.

We expect that in May once we have the detour dates in place.

We'll be at the Southwest Farmers Market this spring.

We are in continued coordination with the ANC and we'll be at the Southwest Bids Out to Lunch event in early June.

Next slide, please.

Just a reminder of all of our social media media outlets, our email and hotline, which is available 24 hours a day and just to subscribe and please keep in touch with us.

Yes, thanks Meredith.

So now that we're at the end of our presentation, we are taking questions

Doesn't look like we have any questions in the chat.

We don't have a huge attendance today, which is different than some of our prior meetings.

Is there any feedback about the time or the format that we're using for these meetings?

We really want to make sure that we're reaching people with this information.

We do have our upcoming public meetings and we're going to do the best job that we can to push that out and make sure that everyone knows they can be there for part or all of the meeting.

Particularly with some of these upcoming impacts that are happening on Main Avenue and in the river, we want to make sure that community members are aware of what's upcoming.

So,

You all are representatives of your community, so we know that you represent more than just yourself on these calls.

So please, I hope you'll help us push this information out.

We're going to be posting this slide deck and this video on our website as soon as we have it posted.

We will send it to you so that you can distribute it.

We do tend to get a lot of hits on the videos after we post them, so we recognize that this information is extending beyond this group.

You guys are the experts.

So we can

Go ahead and conclude today's meeting and these will.

These materials will be posted online at the conclusion of the meeting so we can share that with the Community Advisory Group.

OK, thank you for attending.