Long Bridge Project Community Advisory Group Meeting #6 (Washington, DC)   7/29/2026

Welcome to the sixth community advisory group meeting for VPRA'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 areas.

This includes residential groups, businesses, regional organizations, advocacy groups, elected officials and their staffers and others.

And we meet on a quarterly basis for project updates and to hear your thoughts and input.

So let's go ahead and introduce the team that we have presenting today.

Oh, is my camera working?

Apologies.

Hi, good afternoon.

My name is Naomi Klein.

I work for the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority, the project owner,

All right.

Hi everyone.

And I am Meredith Judy.

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

Hi, good afternoon, everyone.

My name is Scott Crumley.

Hi, everybody.

I'm Sarah Gary.

Hi, everyone.

Terrific.

Thank you, everyone.

Today's agenda includes a brief refresher on the Long Bridge Project.

Most of you are already familiar, so we'll keep that very brief.

But anyone who's new, we want to keep you informed.

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

Thanks, Meredith.

And this being our sixth community advisory group meeting, I am going to try to keep this brief.

But the purpose and need of the project is that essentially there is a two-track rail bridge that crosses the Potomac River between Arlington, Virginia and Washington, DC.

That two-track bridge is shared by three modes of rail.

That is CSX Freight, Virginia Railway Express, Commuter Rail,

and then Amtrak Intercity Passenger Rail.

When we looked back in the early 2000s, what we saw was that this two-track rail bridge was at capacity.

And those peak period VRE trains were essentially standing room only.

And so the only way to be able to run more passenger rail service was to build more tracks.

So what the Long Bridge project is doing is we are building two new rail tracks adjacent to the existing

Dane Railroad Bridge over the Potomac River.

Additionally, we are building a bike pedestrian bridge that is a standalone bridge next to the rail bridge and that is to mitigate impacts to NPS parkland.

So when we're crossing the Potomac River, the rail bridge is completely separate.

The old rail bridge will continue to be owned and operated by CSX, the freight company, and then the new rail bridge will be primarily

for passenger rail, so VRE and Amtrak trains, but all four tracks will be interoperable.

And this is not just a pinch point for the DC region.

It's actually a pinch point on the East Coast.

South of here, there are three tracks.

North of here, there are three tracks.

When you get to Union Station, there are four tracks going all the way up the Northeast, but right at this location in the Long Bridge corridor.

So not just across the river, but about a two mile span.

There are only two tracks.

So what this project is going to do is allow us to separate freight from passenger rail so that we can do things like run hourly Amtrak trains between DC and Richmond, run VRE service on nights and weekends, and also improve our on-time performance and efficiency of existing passenger rail service.

So can you go to the next slide, please?

So while we call it the Long Bridge Project, it's actually not just one bridge.

It is five rail bridges and then two bike or pedestrian bridges in a 1.8 mile corridor.

Because of the size of the project, for the purposes of construction, it was split into a north package and a south package.

So the south package is in purple.

The north package is in yellow.

If you look on the left, it starts near the Long Bridge Aquatic Center in Arlington.

It crosses over the George Washington Memorial Parkway and Mount Vernon Trail, over the Potomac River, has an abutment in East Potomac Park, and that is where the north package meets the south package.

And then the north package will pick up from the shore of the Potomac River in East Potomac Park and carry the project

over I-395 and the Wamata Yellow Line portal where the Yellow Line dives underground, go over Ohio Drive, over the Washington Channel, over Main Avenue, and then through or under the Maryland Avenue overbuild, and then the project ends just south of L'Enfant Station.

So there is a project both north and south of the Long Bridge project.

We have an Alexandria fourth track project that's being done by VPRA.

And then there is a VRE station improvement and fourth track project being completed by VRE.

So all three of these projects are expected to be completed.

before or by 2030.

And then when these projects are completed, along with some other projects between DC and Richmond, that will unlock new rail service through an agreement that we have with CSX.

So what you'll end up with is a continuous four-track corridor from south of Alexandria all the way up to Union Station and up to the northeast.

So the south package in purple does the railroad bridge across the Potomac River and the bicycle pedestrian bridge and that is a design build construction package and then the north package is a progressive design build and that has started construction last year and then both packages will go through 2030.

Go to the next slide.

Okay, and I believe I am turning it over.

If you go to the next slide, I'll know if it's north and south.

We're starting up.

Yeah, we're gonna start on the north end.

Thanks, Naomi.

All right.

So I'm going to walk you guys through the update of where we're at with the north package, what we've done to date, and what we'll be looking at in each of the three major areas that we have subdivided the project into.

Those include Main Avenue, East Potomac Park, and then the southern end is near 395.

At Main Avenue, a lot of the, I would say, heavy utility relocations have already taken place.

Those took place late fall last year, early part of this year.

And those included things like moving sanitary sewer lines and water lines and a few gas lines that got moved out of the way in order to create room for the bridge widening that's happening today.

In the picture on the top right corner, you'll see what we call the west side widening of Pier 2.

So the bridge at Main Avenue will get widened.

Based on what it is today, there'll be more bridge to both the east and to the west of what's there today.

So we've completed Pier 2 on the west side.

That's probably one of the most visible portions of our work today.

And then we'll keep working on the bridge and I'll get to that here in a second.

Some of the other things that we've completed along Main Avenue as you guys are very well aware of are our interim traffic shifts and the closure of the 14th Street ramp to Main Avenue and that's again to make room for all the improvements that we have to perform in this very tight and compact area.

So looking ahead, some of the things that we'll be completing here

We'll include utility duct bank installation that's happening right now.

It's a combination of day and night work.

And this is the duct bank that will house most of the CSX fibers.

Retaining wall construction, another very visible element of our work that will be going well through the fall and bridge work like I had mentioned, particularly micropile and drill shafts for the walls, all that foundation work really kicking into gear now.

We've done quite a bit on the north side.

We're getting ready to start the west side foundation work.

on the south side of Main Avenue now.

So very, very exciting time for us in our foundation groups.

We're keeping them very busy.

Sort of looking ahead a little bit at the end of August, we're tracking for another traffic shift along Main Avenue, and this is a traffic shift that's going to be in place for a little while, probably about a good 12, 18 months until we get

most of the west side completed.

You'll be able to see the bridge elements coming out of the ground sometime this fall.

You'll start seeing the abutments come up, the pier that is south of just that one pier that I just talked about, Pier 2, so that our Pier 1 will come out of the ground.

That'll be very visible this fall.

And then in late fall, we're looking at placing the first set of girders over Main Avenue.

So that'll be also very important time for the project, including the pedestrian bridge.

We're going to be providing a temporary pedestrian bridge to accommodate the phasing that we're having for all these activities out there.

Really quick, Frank, sorry, before we keep going, I did see that there was a hand raised.

And so I think what we're going to do is before we go over to the south side, we can take questions on the north side.

Yeah, I just wanted to mention that earlier this month, we had closed the 14th Street ramp.

There's some work that we're working with DDOT on how and when we get to remove the traffic signals that are in the location where we're going to build Pier 1.

Thank you, Frank.

So I think the next slide shows a detour.

Is that correct?

Okay, thank you.

So the proposed detour for the 14th Street off-ramp closure was for motorists to continue on 395 and then take the 9th Street exit.

So we've been monitoring the main at 9th Street intersection to see if there's been any reduction in operations.

So far so good.

We have not seen any significant delays.

at that intersection, even a couple weeks in, are not experiencing any major issues.

We did observe before the closure that there is some volume that does exit that ramp that hops right back onto 395.

So it's likely that motorists are just staying on 395 instead of jumping the queue.

So do you want to do the next one then?

Also, the other week, in addition to closing the 14th Street off ramp on Main Avenue eastbound in order to construct the crossovers, we did reduce the number of lanes on Main Avenue eastbound down to one lane.

We did expect some queuing and we did experience some queuing from this, especially the first week and a week and a half.

We are monitoring that and we are seeing some queuing.

It definitely has improved.

I received the monitoring report today for the past couple of days and definitely operations are normalizing, which is good.

But we are monitoring the intersection.

We actually have somebody out there that's going out there today just to observe and see if anything, if we need to make any adjustments here.

So I think, is this mine?

Okay, so sorry.

So when we are in the south construction,

We will be maintaining bike access through the work zone.

Pedestrians will shift over onto the westbound roadways or the north side of the roadway, whichever way you want to consider that.

So that will be the detour for the pedestrians on the south side.

For pedestrians, detouring on the north side of the roadway, the diagram to the right shows the pathway in yellow where pedestrians are currently today being detoured because of the work zone on the north side.

That is, we had to close all the walkways there, so they are being detoured to the north, and that seems to be working pretty well.

So yeah, I'm so sorry.

I will say one thing.

During Cherry Blossom Festival, we will provide an additional eight foot of walkway because we do have a lot more pedestrians during that time.

So just during Cherry Blossom, we will be providing more of a walkway during that time.

For the long term, for the truck detour,

During Phase 2 South, trucks will not be able to make the right turn from Ohio Drive northbound to Main Avenue eastbound.

They will not be able to make that turn.

It's too sharp of a turn for them to make.

So instead, trucks, buses, and there should not be a lot of trucks and buses coming from Ohio Drives, maybe some tour buses, since they are on NPS property.

They will be directed to turn left.

Thanks, Sarah.

OK, thank you.

No problem.

Just a graphic that I believe has been presented before we can walk through it.

Right now, where we are in the schedule, summer of 26, we're getting ready to transition the focus of our efforts to the southern part of Main Avenue.

Up until now, there's been a very large presence for us on the north side trying to get retaining walls going, trying to get bridge elements going.

So some of that work you'll notice will start to transition more towards the south.

And then what's going to happen is sometime next year, it'll be mainly in the south.

So we'll always be working.

Odds and ends on both sides but the major footprint of our efforts are going to start shifting towards the south for a while and then we'll come back to the north again and then back to the south and a lot of that has to do with the phasing of the bridges and how that all works out with having to maintain train traffic and vehicular traffic down below.

Oh, I think my light turned off.

There we go.

Okay, and then moving further south on the project, talk a little bit about what's happening at East Potomac.

So if you go through East Potomac Park, you'll notice that there's been a good amount of effort around Ohio Drive.

We've shifted traffic.

We've installed supportive excavation, SOE.

Sometimes you'll hear that term.

around Ohio Drive.

And that's a picture actually of some of that in action on the right hand side.

And then another part of the more visible part of our work, the trestle that spans over the Washington Channel.

We've made it the whole way across.

And then we'll be working on extending it towards the Washington Channel Bridge through August, which should have it pretty much wrapped up by the end of August.

Looking ahead, some of the things you can expect to see out here.

A lot of foundation work, a lot of bridge work, a lot of retaining wall work is going to be happening through this fall and into next year.

Like I mentioned, the trestle completion, that's a pretty big thing for us because it sets us up for the peer work that's going to happen in the channel.

And then

Something that's not very visible to the public, but it is very important for us.

There's a major switchover that we're going to do with CSX and part of the fiber line that runs through the project.

It'll get shifted over to its new permanent location through a good stretch throughout the East Potomac Park area.

I think that's going to happen late September.

Yep, that's okay.

We can move on.

Then lastly for us on the south end of the project down by 395, we have set up a new long term work zone on southbound 395 as you approach the Potomac.

That setup is going to be in place for about a month.

We are going to have most of the work taking place behind the temporary concrete barrier that's out there, so we will be limiting the number of

temporary lane closure that we need to perform.

There will still be some.

Right now we have some scheduled for overnights and we're working with DDOT on the timing of daytime closure.

So those will probably be coming in the next two weeks or so as well.

The last thing I want to mention out here

This work that's being done right now is in preparation for a more long term setup that we're going to have that we're going to install probably around the end of August.

When we do that, we're going to be moving the current exit location for the ramp that goes from southbound 395 to the express lanes.

It'll get relocated closer, I'm going to say further south along 395.

and what that does is it opens up an area where we will be able to build our Pier 3 of the future bridge that's going to carry the tracks over 395.

Yeah let's let's see because we did have at least one question so why don't we go ahead and give

I did have a question about timeline, but a future slide that broke it down summer, winter, over the next couple of years answered my question.

Well, great.

Glad you got your question answered.

Thank you.

Hi everyone, Brian Grayburn with Long Bridge South here.

We're doing the southern end of the project from East Potomac Park over to the Long Bridge Aquatic Center in Gravelly Point.

We'll be building the new rail bridge to accommodate VPRA trains, as well as the new bicycle and pedestrian bridge from East Potomac Park over to the Long Bridge Aquatic Center, also tying into the Mount Vernon Trail.

Next slide.

So you've probably seen a lot of activity in the water out there recently.

The first of two Virginia's shoreline bulkhead installations are now complete.

There's some barges in the water, some yellow turbidity curtains, and some cranes getting ready to do our marine pile driving.

This summer we completed our test pile activities in the river, as well as our statinamic testing, the explosive testing out there.

We appreciate everyone's cooperation with that.

Currently, our DC bulkhead is almost complete.

We have continued marine construction operations and we'll be transitioning to permanent foundation pile installation, probably in earnest by the end of September, I believe, with the marine piles in the river.

The second Virginia shoreline bulkhead installation down to Gravely Point just started operations last week.

That'll be underway for the next few weeks to begin that lower

bulkhead construction.

And then also up at the Long Bridge Aquatic Center, we had that trail around the back of the Aquatic Center closed for a few weeks to install our supportive excavation.

I believe on Thursday we opened up that trail.

So next slide.

One of the big changes out here that have affected the public so far is we implemented the Mount Vernon detour, trail detour a few weeks ago in Gravelly Point.

It was moved to Mount Vernon Trail out of the way of construction of our second Virginia bulkhead as well as the future bridge work that will be taking place on land.

Temporary construction access roads and staging areas were established in Gravelly Point.

Fencing was installed to prevent trail users from accessing our work zone.

Trail restriping and barrier installation along the George Washington Memorial Parkway and the trail occurred.

And detour signage was installed.

We've gotten some compliments from the public on how nice the trail is.

I think that users are happy with the changes we made to get them out of the way.

And I know we'll later on talk about some of the outreach events that we had prior to and after opening up the new trail.

The trail will be in place, I believe through about probably 2030, maybe into 29.

We'll have to see.

Next slide shows the map of the trail.

You have to excuse my color blindness, but I believe the green trail is the trail that's open now closer to the George Washington Memorial Parkway, which gets everyone out of our main construction zone right up through the middle there on a nice new wider paved segment of the trail.

The temporary detour goes from approximately a quarter mile from the north of Gravelly Point all the way to the northbound 395 bridge

The detour route includes a paved surface and street lighting and striping.

It crosses the construction access road.

Trail users should use caution when crossing the road.

We've moved some fences and we're putting up some mirrors and everything to ensure everybody's safety out there.

And this detour will be in place for the next four years or so.

Over in East Potomac Park, we've had some

exciting development server there.

All of our, so we're installing our foundation piles.

The stat dynamic testing was completed this summer.

The results confirmed basically our design to date test pile installation was completed also this month.

But those of you that have been on the yellow line recently or driven by, you've probably seen these piles sticking out of the ground.

We've been here for a year and a half, and this is the first permanent thing we've done on the project.

These piles you see here in parking lot C of East Potomac Park will be the permanent foundations for the new bridge.

And the first question everyone asks me is, is the bridge going to be that high?

And my answer is always, no, it's not.

We have to drive the piles further in the ground and then we'll cut them off.

So no, the bridge will not be higher than the existing Long Bridge.

But it's very exciting for this team over here to finally begin some permanent production work.

Next slide.

For those of you that have been on the river, you'll notice we've placed some buoys in our active marine construction zone in the river.

We have multiple barges and cranes that will be supporting bridge construction and will be dramatically increasing as work increases throughout the project.

We have our ATOM plan in place to direct recreational traffic through a central navigable channel.

Marine traffic may be switching.

between the main channel it's currently in and two auxiliary channels within the next two to three months.

The impacts will be coordinated through our outreach team and communicated to voters and the public.

Voters should observe buoys and and outreach will be continued with monthly notices to mariners as we progress forward.

Great, anyone think that's the end of South?

Thank you, Brian.

All right, let's move into our public outreach section of our presentation.

As everyone here knows, summer is a particularly busy time in DC with many visitors traveling in our region.

So in recognition of that, VPRA's team and our contractors continue to carefully coordinate with NPS, Southwest BID, the WRF, and other event organizers.

The existing pedestrian bridge across Main Avenue will remain open over Main Avenue throughout summer events and a temporary bridge will be in place before we remove any of the existing structure.

So public outreach activities for the Long Bridge Project continued throughout the spring and into early summer.

Some of the highlights include two public meetings that we held in early May.

We held one in Arlington and one in DC at the Southwest Library and the meetings were well attended and we just really appreciate everyone on this call helping us spread the word about those meetings for those who wanted to engage with us in person.

We also participated in six Bike to Work Day pit stops across the region in mid-May, which led to interaction with almost 700 riders.

I particularly enjoy that event because it leads to a lot of quality conversations with folks who will be using our facilities in the future.

We frequently table at Wharf DC events and that continued to be true throughout the spring and early summer.

And most recently we held two tabling events on the Mount Vernon Trail, which Brian referred to.

We were out there just before the new detour went into effect on Gravelly Point and also right afterwards.

And that allowed us to speak with nearly a hundred riders on the trail.

at those two events.

And we again received a lot of really positive feedback about the detour and some good suggestions that we've passed on to the team.

We continue to receive inquiries through our email and phone hotlines, which are monitored regularly.

We provide weekly traffic advisories, monthly marine advisories, and we now have a well established monthly construction update that's distributed to all of our newsletter subscribers.

So we hope that you are on that distribution list.

Next slide, please.

VPRA recognizes that the businesses in the vicinity of Main Avenue construction area in particular are concerned about customer and delivery access that is front of our mind, as Frank and Sarah described in their description of the work that we're doing.

We're developing detour routes.

And we want to support businesses in distributing that information to customers and to delivery providers and all those who are impacted.

We, of course, are continue to be in touch with the mapping companies, which is probably our best way of spreading the word as people use their GPS's to navigate this area.

Some of the other efforts that we have underway to support the businesses include installation of clear, easy to follow signs, reminding customers that the businesses are open, and we will continue to expand that initiative.

Installing signage along the detour to help with navigation.

We've also launched a newsletter business feature series in both the Long Bridge Project and Amtrak Virginia newsletters.

That first

Business feature was in our spring summer newsletter and it highlighted Jesse Taylor's seafood at the fish market at the wharf and in the fall we'll be highlighting Rappahannock Oyster Company.

If your business would like to be highlighted, please reach out to us and let us know and then we will continue to reach out to businesses that we think might be particularly interested in being featured.

We're partnering with the Southwest BID and the WARF meeting with them.

We're speaking with them on a regular basis.

The leadership at both organizations to support access and visibility for the businesses.

Next slide, please.

We have upcoming outreach events we want to make sure you're aware of.

In particular, in August, we have Arena Stage Community Day, which we attended last year also.

It was an excellent outreach event.

Again, high quality opportunity to speak with

residents and travelers in the area.

We will also attend the Southwest Community Day in August.

In September, we plan to attend the Southwest Cinema at the Wharf.

Last year, we were able to share a video about some of the upcoming traffic changes, and we hope to also share a very brief video before the movie starts this year with some updates on our construction progress.

We also plan to participate in the 9-11 Memorial Trail Walk bike ride in September.

And then we attend the Southwest Farmers Market on a monthly basis, continued to coordinate with the ANC and attend those community meetings.

In case any questions come up, we have opportunity to present at the last meeting, and then we continue to participate in Southwest VIDS events, including out to lunch, which will restart in the fall.

We are committed to being a good neighbor and that means adhering to the district noise ordinance, making every effort to limit night work when at all possible, and then providing

Information if we do need to generate night work.

Regularly monitoring noise levels and ensuring that we stay within the established limits.

We utilize whisper quiet generators with lower decibel levels.

We use backup alarms that regulate the volume.

We monitor vibration and we employ drilling equipment versus pile driving equipment whenever possible.

Please stay connected to us.

Our website is a continued source of the latest information.

We are very active on all of these social media platforms that are listed here.

As I noted earlier, we have a project hotline that's available both phone and email that we are very attentive to.

So please make sure to reach out to us, join our newsletter list if you're not already on it.

Next slide.

Let's go ahead and open it up for questions.

What kind of questions do you have for the Long Bridge team?

How can the community advisory group, this group, help us share information?

This is our chance to hear from you.

Patrice, I'll hand it to you.

Yeah, thank you, Meredith and team.

I don't see any questions right now in the chat.

We did have one hand raised, but I think we already addressed that.

Okay, well, we record all of these community advisory group meetings and we post them on our website.

So this will be posted within the next couple days, both the PDF of the presentation and the video itself.

And then we will also be reaching out to you leading up to our next community advisory group meeting, which will be for the DC side, which will be in either late October or early November.

So please look for that email with that information.

Thank you for being here today.

Have a great summer.

Thanks, everyone.