Long Bridge Project Virtual Public Meeting – March 2023   3/28/2023

All right, folks, I think we are back and ready to go.

Give me one second to get the screen share taken care of.

Really appreciate your patience.

All right, and if a member of our trustee team can confirm we can see what's on the screen, that'd be great.

All right, engage with us.

Fantastic.

Okay, everyone, thank you so much for joining.

We just wanted to make sure we got the YouTube stream live up and running and we have.

So with that, I will make my introductions very hasty.

I am Alan Belniak.

I am helping facilitate the digital portion of the meeting tonight.

Coming up next, we have a presentation to walk you through as well as a nice video to explain the project.

And then we've got several project team members here on hand to answer some questions.

We are accepting questions through the Q&A box inside of Zoom down below, so please just click Q&A and type your question in, as some of you already have.

Thank you very much for that.

We're not using the raise hand feature or the chat feature tonight, it's just going to be a bit challenging, so we do really encourage you to use the Q&A, so please go ahead and enter your questions or comments there.

We're also going to be sharing later on some opportunities to engage with the team, such as the project website, surveys, and things like that.

So we'll have that up and running and share it out with you as well.

This meeting is being recorded, just want to make sure.

And rest assured, if we don't answer your question tonight, every question that does get entered does get captured.

So even if we don't answer it live, we will be capturing it and we'll follow up at a later date.

So with that, I'm going to stop talking and hand it over to Jerrica to start the presentation in earnest.

Thank you, Alan.

Good evening.

Thank you all once again for joining us for the Long Bridge public meeting.

We are so happy that you all take time out of your busy schedule to join us this evening.

We look forward to sharing the latest updates about the Long Bridge project with all of you.

With us today, myself, Erica Gittman, I am the Director of External Affairs and Communications at the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

But more importantly, we have Ms. Shirlene Cleveland, who is the Senior Director of the Long Bridge Project, who will be leading our presentation this evening.

And then following Shonta Keller,

who is a Senior Engineer and the Bicycle Pedestrian Lead at our partner, VHB, who will be able to answer some questions about the structure accompanying the Long Bridge across the Potomac, the Bicycle Pedestrian Bridge.

So just wanted to go over the agenda for this evening.

We'll give you a little bit of an overview of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority.

We are a newer organization and we are responsible for the delivery of the Long Bridge project.

We'll talk about the project scope, the schedule, which is very important, packaging and procurement,

And then we'll go through the project itself, the rail bridges, the bicycle pedestrian bridges, bridge, and then the pedestrian bridge on Main Avenue, and then we'll talk about next steps.

So, who is the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority or VPRA?

We were created in 2020 by the General Assembly.

and we're here to design, build, and essentially deliver such a Transforming Rail in Virginia project.

We can and will own rail assets in right of way and partner with others like Amtrak, BRE, CSX, Norfolk Southern to operate passenger and commuter rail service and we're governed by a 15-member board.

As I mentioned, we are responsible for delivering the transforming rail in Virginia, and it's a generational passenger rail project.

And it's not just transforming rail is just not a name, but it really is something that's never been done before by a state

The CSX agreement was done in acquisition of the corridor between Washington DC and North Carolina.

You can see the phase one and two improvements on the

right side of your screen.

It's going to, starting with the Long Bridge Project in Washington, DC, construct a dedicated two-track passenger corridor separating passenger and freight rail.

And so not just transforming passenger rail, but also helping to improve

freight rail as well.

The completion of each phase will trigger additional VRE and Amtrak service.

Thank you, Jerrica.

So you can see the location of the project here, basically right in the center of the Washington DC metropolitan area.

You can see the star in the middle diagram up at the top.

And up on the right hand side, you can see the actual project corridor starting near the shore on the Virginia side, extending across the Potomac and ending near the L'Enfant VRE station in the District of Columbia.

The diagram here at the bottom just shows you a little more detail.

Beginning the project right beyond the Rosalind basically switch right near the Long Bridge Aquatic Center, extending across the Potomac River through East and West Potomac Parks across the Washington Channel and then up through the Main Avenue area into the portals and then terminating just before the L'Enfant switch up in the District of Columbia.

Next slide.

The project has mainly four different areas, each with their own different character.

In the GW Parkway on the Virginia side, we're going to be building the Potomac River Rail Bridge and the Potomac River Bicycle Pedestrian Bridge over the George Washington Memorial Parkway.

Number three is East and West Potomac Parks.

We'll build a bunch of bridges there.

That's where both the bike pedestrian bridge and the rail bridge over the Potomac will terminate, but we'll continue the rail corridor on.

That is where the bike ped corridor ends, but the rail corridor will obviously continue on up through East and West Potomac Park, either retained by walls or on bridges over I-395.

the Ohio Drive SW East Road over Washington Channel, and then we move on to the Main Avenue area where we will be rebuilding the Main Avenue rail bridge.

We will be taking down the existing pedestrian bridge over Main Avenue and rebuilding a new bike ped bridge in its place.

The project does then extend up through the portals area, adding that two track corridor and terminating then again at the, just before the switch at the L'Enfant BRE station.

Next slide.

So here are just some stats about the project.

And then we also do have this overview video that I'd like to show you because it really does demonstrate better than anything exactly where we're going to be building out here.

You can see here we're flying over the George Washington Memorial Parkway on the Virginia Shore, the Potomac River, getting down into the project corridor.

You can see the existing Long Bridge and the existing Wamato Yellow Line Bridge.

at the top and the bottom of these four bridges and then between those two are visualizations of the two new bridges that we will be building.

The new passenger rail bridge and then the new bike pedestrian bridge.

The piers are aligned with the existing bridges to help with navigation of the river and the bridges are so close you can see that fender ring system is all tied together.

There will be basically be one system because these bridges are so close together.

It is extended obviously across the river, alighting on the Potomac Shore.

That is where the bike pedestrian bridge ends, but the rail corridor will continue.

Still building offline from the existing rail line, but as we get further into DC, we don't have as much space just spread out that way, and so we're going to have to be rebuilding this entire corridor to make room for four tracks where there are currently only two.

So will we be taking down

The next three bridges, I think we're going to do a little swing back here though to take one final look at the I-395 bridge that we'll be adding.

This will be built offline from the existing rail line to bridge over both I-395 and the Amada Yellow Line tunnel portal.

But then we do get into this rebuilt area where we will be having to take down the existing two track bridges and be rebuilding them with four track bridges over Ohio Drive East, the Washington Channel, and then Main Avenue Southwest, these three bridges that you can see right here.

In addition, you can see the rebuilt

Here's a blow-up of the Ohio Drive four track bridge, rail bridge, and Washington Channel four track bridge.

And then we'll take another look on up towards the Salamander Hotel, the Portals area.

You can see the new pedestrian bridge that we're going to be rebuilding over Main Avenue.

That is just a concept.

We are still working with all the property owners in that area to decide ultimately exactly what this will look like.

But this is similar, close to what I'm sure we'll end up with in that location.

So swinging back, we head back towards the Potomac.

You can see the Jefferson Memorial there to get your bearings.

And then heading off across the river on back towards the Long Bridge Park and Aquatic Center on the Virginia Shore.

OK, next slide.

OK, so for the project schedule, the project has been around for some time, started in 2011, and at that time it was led by DDOT.

They oversaw the project until they received a record of decision back in 2020.

same year that VPRA was created.

And so we took the project over starting in 2021.

We're currently in that gold box just about at the end of the gold box.

We do have 30% design out for review by all the stakeholders as getting those comments and starting to address those.

We did just issue our first request for qualifications for the north package of the project last Friday.

So we are getting into that design-build alternate project delivery period.

We'll be doing land acquisition, permitting, and then final design and construction.

We do plan to be getting to construction towards the end of 2024 or early 2025, and then looking to finish construction by 2030 so that we can see those service increases that Jerica mentioned in her intro.

So next slide.

So back to the packaging and procurement.

This is the breakdown of the packages.

The purple is the south package, which is the work in Virginia, and then the bridges over the Potomac River.

And then from the northern abutment of those bridges is we take over with the northern package.

It has the longer duration, which is why we advertise that request for qualifications first.

So the south package will be a classic design build project, will be a best value selection, half price, probably half qualifications, and then the north package will be it's called a progressive design build package which is based mostly on qualifications, a little element of price, but then there's kind of a phase where you work together with the successful proposer to develop the scope more, flesh out the scope, and then you you negotiate a price

as you get towards, you know, 60-70% design.

So we're looking forward to getting both of those contracts underway, but obviously, like I said, we just advertise the RFQ for the north package.

That is an active procurement.

So next slide.

Okay, with that, let's get into a little more detail with the various rail bridges throughout the project.

Next slide.

This gives you an overview of the design intent of the rail bridges.

For the most part, the existing bridge is, like I said, sandwiched between the existing Long Bridge and the existing La Bona Yellow Line Bridge.

It's not going to have grand vistas, kind of like the Frederick Douglass Bridge.

So it's more of a modest structure.

We tried to mimic the look of the existing Long Bridge and the aesthetic appearance of the bridge.

And then with the bike pedestrian bridge, same issue where it is going to be between those bridges again.

So we try to keep it a safe crossing with a low profile, simple structure that generally blends in with the surrounding bridges.

We will talk about the bike pedestrian bridge in more depth in the later part of the project, but we will continue on looking at more of the rail bridges for this portion.

So next slide.

Just a little bit of history about the existing Long Bridge.

There has been a bridge, you know, in this general location of some sort since the early 1800s.

They were washed out quite a bit, replaced many times.

I won't go over all of that, but the existing bridge was opened for traffic in 1904.

Obviously it's been there for some time.

Initially, as you can see in the upper left hand slide, it was a completely a truss bridge.

but I guess trains had to go at a very slow speed with that design.

So during the Second World War it was rehabilitated and come up with this design that you see now that they did retain the truss for the movable span.

During the 60s it was determined that they no longer needed to have this portion of the river navigable for large vessels and so the bridge actually hasn't opened since about 1969.

I don't even think it can open anymore.

So this portion of the river is mostly used by recreational vessels or for tour boats as most of the traffic you see up and down this corridor.

And then there's a visual of the GW Parkway Rail Bridge also from 1904.

Next slide.

So again, that we are trying to mimic the look of the existing rail line that's going to be, or existing rail corridor that's going to be staying in place.

So this is the concept for the new two-track bridge over the GW Parkway, mimicking the existing look of the 1904 bridge.

Next slide.

And here's some visuals from the Mount Vernon Trail area.

This is what the rail bridge will look like through there.

Again, mimicking the existing bridge and having those round columns supporting the structure so that there's more visual openness for safety and security reasons so that you can see through those columns.

Did that not advance?

Sorry, I thought it did.

Do we need to be on slide 17 or 18?

Folks on my screen, I see Shirlene Frozen.

I do too.

Oh, there she's back.

Alright.

Can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

OK, so this is the heart of what we're building here.

Again, we are mimicking the existing bridge, though our bridge is slightly higher, so the piers do have a bit of a different look that they do have the same proportions, same general material that was used in the historic piers of the 1904 bridge.

We do also have the icebreaker nose upstream and a rounded downstream to ensure that we have turbulent flow around the structure.

That is kept at minimum.

And the proposed barriers will approximate the existing bridge stone masonry, obviously not with that weathered look since they haven't been there since 1904.

Next slide.

So in Eastern West Potomac Park, we see the alignment in the picture of the area gets much more constrained through here.

We do put things mostly on retaining walls so that we can limit our footprint and it will be adding quite a bit of landscaping through here in order to soften the look as we have this new corridor going through the parks.

Next slide.

And so this is the I-395 rail bridge, the existing conditions.

Again, we're trying to mimic that look with the new rail bridge.

Next slide.

And so you can see the concepts that we've come up with using those through freight girders with weathering steel.

We're currently looking at the two different concepts here.

The first one is with the round columns supporting the bridge or with the wall piers at the bottom.

Those are both being currently assessed by the structural engineers and also by those with a vote in the aesthetic look of the structure.

And so we should be getting to closure, I would think, within the next few months regarding which of these options we're going to be able to proceed with.

Next slide.

And here is the east of West Potomac Park's Ohio Drive SW East Bridge.

This is one of those bridges that we're going to be taking down in its entirety and replacing with a new structure, but this will give you a flavor of what we're generally trying to mimic with the new bridge that we'll be building.

So next slide.

And so these are the two options that we've come up with, again, with either the rounded columns supporting the bridge or with the wall pier.

Both of those are still being assessed by the structural engineers.

And then we'll go again before the likes of the Commission of Fine Arts, the National Capital Planning Commission, DC SHPO, and the National Park Service so they can tell us their preference.

Next slide.

And this is the Washington Channel Bridge, again, just showing you the existing condition.

Next slide.

And again, the two concepts that we are evaluating, either with the rounded columns or with the wall piers.

Next slide.

After that, the project extends up through by the Washington Marina over the Main Avenue Southwest Road, and then up through the Maryland Overbuilt area, Portals area,

So we do have to take down that existing two-track bridge and replace it with a four-track bridge.

Next slide.

With this, you can see the existing condition, what we're generally trying to mimic.

Next slide.

And then this is what's proposed, reusing the existing wall pier, but then again, the through-plate girders with weathered steel as the bridge girders.

With that, I think that ends the rail bridges and we move on to the bike ped structures and Shanta Keller will take over talking about those.

Hello, good evening.

So there are two structures I'm going to present on.

The one over Main Avenue, building on what Shirlene just showed, if you go to the next slide, there is an existing pedestrian bridge.

So you're looking at the existing conditions here with the plan view off to the left, you see all that blue, the four new tracks, and that rail bridge covers a footprint of the rail bridge, extends beyond the existing pedestrian bridge today.

You'll see photos of the existing pedestrian bridge today in the top, labeled A.

That blue structure is actually an old railroad bridge that was retrofitted to be a pedestrian bridge.

Off to the right-hand side, that N connects into the hotel there, and off to the left-hand side, there's stairs that come down to meet Main Avenue.

More photos of it down in the bottom left.

B is just another photo looking up at that existing bridge.

And photo C is what it looks like up top.

You see that new pedestrian deck with the railings there.

So on the next slide, you'll see that's the bridge that is being taken down.

You get a little better view of the aerial shot here where you can see the new wider rail bridge.

And additionally, you'll see this orange area.

That's the work zone that's needed to construct the rail bridge.

So both the rail bridge and the pedestrian bridge are going to be taken down.

And then for the duration of the construction of a rail bridge, you need to work within that orange zone.

So then after the completion of the rail bridge is when you're going to reconstruct and replace the new pedestrian bridge alongside in roughly that orange area, we'll say.

Next slide.

Please.

Just an update on progress with some of the key stakeholders here.

We're working on the design of this bridge now.

So it's privately owned bridge by the Portals Development Associates, the limited partnership and serves the Republic Properties buildings, those portals you see in plan view and the Salamander Hotel, which is formerly the Mandarin Oriental.

and there's extensive coordination ongoing with the key stakeholders.

So the owners of the bridge that I just mentioned, the Washington Marina Company, which is labeled there, their parking lot is where this bridge ends at the south end of it, the wharf regarding the temporary impacts during construction, and the Section 106 programmatic agreement signatories, including the Commission of Fine Arts,

regarding the design aesthetic and commission approvals for the actual design of the bridge.

So coordination ongoing with the final design there.

That's the Main Avenue Pedestrian Bridge update.

Next slide is the Potomac River Bike Ped Bridge.

Next slide.

Here's a view of the existing conditions.

In the plan view off to the left, you've seen some similar plans here that Shirlene described with the rail bridge and the bike ped bridge.

The bike ped's sort of a green color rail bridge in blue right there between the existing Long Bridge and the Wamata Yellow Line Bridge.

So there's three photos here.

They're each at sort of the landing points or the connection points of the bridge.

The top right photo A would be if you're standing in East Potomac Park.

And so you're roughly in Ohio Drive there, looking back over the river, looking towards Virginia in the distance there.

The existing Long Bridge is off to your left in photo A, the Lamonta Yellow Line Bridge off to the right.

So this is where there's going to be the new rail bridge and also the bike ped bridge.

And this will be the northern terminus of the bike ped bridge.

going down to the middle photo, that's photo B, you're standing in the Mount Vernon Trail here, and off to the right now, looking the other way across the river, off to the right is the Long Bridge, existing off to the left, the Yellow Line Bridge, there will be a connection down to the Mount Vernon Trail here,

And then going to the southern end, photo C there, you're standing just behind the Aquatic Center in Long Bridge Park in Arlington County, Virginia.

And there's an existing path there.

If you could see beyond those trees, you're looking sort of over George Washington Memorial Parkway towards the river.

So then the proposed design into the next photo.

Next slide, sorry.

Back to existing conditions, this is just a little bit more of the context of where this bridge lives.

So it's that yellow color there, that connection, and this is just showing how critical this link, this new link is tying into the existing bike pad network.

So you see all the green lines,

and the blue lines, which indicate the bike friendly roads.

So making a really critical connection for the bike ped network and adding a second connection across the river.

The first connection being that 14th Street bridge, they're showing in green nearby parallel to this bridge.

And there's a photo off to the left that shows what that looks like today.

That's your nearest link getting across the

The Potomac River and connecting that network.

And so the new yellow bridge there complementing it and largely improving that connection in the network.

You'll see on the next series of slides.

Thank you.

So here's the first images, some renderings of what that looks like.

In the top, you'll see the plan view, and I will step around to each of those connection points, look a little more in detail.

But just generally speaking, looking at typical sections, the bottom left-hand side, side A, photo A, this is a rendering what the bridge will look like from the side view.

You see in that dark brown color, that's the structural truss section holding up, spanning between the piers.

You can see those single column

Hammerhead piers there.

Those piers all align with the railroad bridge piers, which sort of fixes the span of the span links.

And then off to the photo B, off to the right, is a perspective view of what this will look like when you're riding on this bridge here.

In the next slide there's a sort of a more engineering section drawing.

Here we go.

And this slide is trying to illustrate the update that we've made since the last public meeting.

So if I could draw your attention sort of off to the right hand side where there's the yellow or gold color, that's the section that we presented at the last public meeting.

And we've made a few updates to this.

So two really notable updates, one being the height of the truss above the deck level.

We've brought that used to be sort of overhead above eye level.

and we've brought that down lower relative to the deck which would be off looking at the on the green side off to the left you'll see that's below eye level now.

The goal of that just being to reduce the sort of improve the user experience and reduce the obstructions of views from on the bridge but also considering the impact to the national parks and users looking at this from externally making it a sort of minimizing the smallest

View Shed of this bridge and the smallest visual impact of the truss from the side.

So squeezing it down vertically, but then horizontally we've widened it by two feet.

So where it was 14 feet between railings, now we have 16 feet clear between railings.

One more third detail here is a new railing detail, but you'll see that a little better in the rendering views that are coming up.

So next slide, please.

Here's a view of the southernmost connection.

This is right behind Long Bridge Park.

In the plan view up top, you can sort of see where we're looking from.

Down looking at the bottom, we're right behind the Aquatic Center.

Today, there's an existing perimeter path, a paved path that wraps around the back of the Aquatic Center that we're meeting, a 10-foot wide paved path.

What we're going to do is connect the bridge directly into that path and we'll carry the 16-foot-wide deck, we'll neck down to a 12-foot-wide path and wrap around with a nice 42-foot radius curve that'll accommodate all user groups

and emergency vehicles as well.

And it will narrow down to meet that existing 10-foot wide trail.

We also plan on having a little rest area.

That's that triangle at the bottom with some signage, a little rest area, and then a pedestrian connection that extends and wraps around the other side of the building up to towards the front of the Aquatic Center.

And there's coordination ongoing with Arlington County and with DDOT and other stakeholders.

to refine the design here at this connection.

The next connection, moving a little bit further up,

will be down at the Mount Vernon Trail.

So there are two connections that'll get you down after you've crossed over George Washington Memorial Parkway.

In the foreground here, there's stairs that'll connect directly down for those who choose and are able to use the stairs to get to the Mount Vernon Trail.

And then coming from over the river is a ramp, a full 16-foot-wide ramp

Connecting down into the Mount Vernon Trail.

The Mount Vernon Trail itself, we're going to be accommodating the current planned widening of the Mount Vernon Trail.

And the Mount Vernon Trail will be elevated ever so slightly.

So today the Mount Vernon Trail is between 8 and 10 feet wide.

So we are planning on widening it out to the planned 11 foot wide intersection.

Intersection details here are being coordinated and being refined with ongoing NPS and DDOT and other, Arlington County and other stakeholder.

The last feature I'll just note are those railings I mentioned.

Having the independent railing system, which you can see sort of in a gray color embedded inside of the dark brown structural truss, with having a continuous independent railing system, it smooths the connections in between the ramp in the foreground sort of there, coming down into the connection points.

in and around the stairs.

So you'll just have a smooth continuous railing in and amongst some of these somewhat more complex connections and geometries here.

The next slide is our third and final connection here.

We're in DC now in East Potomac Park.

So coming from across the river, the bridge sort of slopes down and then there's a T-shaped intersection.

So users will generally be queued to slow down and choose whether they go left or right and eventually will come down and tie into Ohio Drive.

And what we're showing here is the current planned project that's a partnership with NPS and DDOT to add bike lanes to Ohio Drive, which we anticipate will be ready and done to receive our landing from our bike ped bridge.

But details with this connection, again, similarly are ongoing with DDOT and NPS and other key stakeholders.

Thank you, Shanta.

So on to project next steps.

So we are going to continue to, oh well sorry it's still March, we have one more public engagement in-person event which will technically be in April, April 1st at the Farmers Market in Southwest DC.

We also have a survey which you'll see

the information for on our next slide.

We also have continued stakeholder engagement.

As you heard throughout the presentation, there are a lot of stakeholders involved in this project.

And so we will continue to engage them throughout the span of the engineering and design of the project.

We will

the evaluating comments and resolving them as we continue to develop our design plans.

And then we are continuing to hit significant milestones for the project throughout the summer, the final 30% plan submission into procurement and final design.

And then what we're all waiting for in 2024 is that groundbreaking and construction.

And then as I mentioned, we've been in a public engagement period, and I think we have interacted with some of you in person, and we are grateful for all of you who've come out to some of our regional pop-up events, and then for all of you who've come out this evening.

And then as I mentioned, we do have a survey online that's open until April 10th, which you can fill out.

We have a QR code, I believe, on our next slide.

Yes, for all you very tech savvy folks online, you can use your mobile device to take a picture of the QR code to scan it, access our project survey or use the link on the screen right now.

It is surveymonkey.com slash R Long Bridge Spring 2023.

and then you can also stay connected with us via social media, connect with us on LinkedIn, follow us on Twitter and Facebook, and also take a look at the project information and sign up for our newsletter and emails.

And then project alerts will be really important once we get into the construction phase on the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority website.

I will say that this evening we are experiencing

and some internal server issues.

So you may not be able to get on the website this evening, Mondays, but tomorrow, please check back on the website and you'll be able to access the Long Bridge Project site.

That's VirginiaPassengerRailAuthority.org backslash Long Bridge Project.

So now we're going to get into what you all are eager to have your questions answered.

Oh my goodness.

I looked and there were 18 questions and now there are 33 questions.

I am going to try my best.

I was starting to categorize some of them.

I'll start.

We have Senator Adam Ebbett who represents

Some of his constituents are probably here with us.

I believe it's currently the 30th Senate District.

Yes, the bridge has been assessed and CSX assures us that it's in excellent condition.

We will monitor obviously as we do our work to make sure we're not having any undue effects on it.

Thank you.

We have some questions regarding Main Ave. Can you tell us a little bit about the components of the project over Main Ave?

How wide will it be over the Anacostia River Trail and

So it says for the new rail and pedestrian bridges over Main Avenue,

We're widening that sidewalk.

Yeah, sorry.

And I like the small nuance, but I call it just a pedestrian bridge.

And I hear bike pedestrian bridge, that's the one over the river, not being designed to accommodate sort of continuous riding bikes across that new pedestrian bridge over Main Ave, since you are going into the hotel balcony.

The pedestrian bridge over Main Avenue and the rail bridge, the abutments today are really close to Main Avenue and they are being pushed back.

I don't think it's been completely settled how wide that pedestrian or how wide that sidewalk will be, but I believe close to 15 feet plus or minus if getting close and we are aware that that

path is a planned extension of the future Anacostia Riverwalk Trail.

Oh, that's the sidewalk below, and then the plan width for the pedestrian bridge over.

Still in design, the walkway itself will be at least as wide as it is today.

Today it's about seven feet.

It will most likely be between eight to 10, maybe a little bit wider feet pathway, but also accommodating landscaping on either side.

Thank you both.

This is a construction related question.

That is the plan.

We do have agreement from CSX that we will be able to

Cut down the corridor for, you know, we like to say a three day weekend.

I don't know if they would like it to be quite that long, but as long as we need no more than three days to be able to slide in some prefabricated bridge structures to know that we can reduce the overall construction time, at least for the Main Avenue bridge.

Perfect.

Do you have a few more details about some of the work that will be happening there?

So sure, yeah, so there'll be a fourth track added, so it'll be, you know, kind of match what's going across the river and there will be a new station for Lafont that will then be an island platform that can be served by trains going in both directions.

That, oh, I'm not sure where it is now.

I'd have to.

Well, I'm sure we're going to be the long pole in the tent so they will need to be done by the time we're done in 2030 so.

Yes, there will be.

We have not determined what they will be yet, but stay tuned.

Another construction question for the passenger commuter and freight rail.

For the most part, things will continue as they are now.

That was an agreement that we made when we proceeded with this project is that we would have to maintain rail operations.

So a lot of the work will be done at night when there are as many trains running.

Other than that, that extended closure for that weekend should be pretty much the same as people experience now.

Obviously, the trains will have to move.

As we build one section, we'll move trains to that built section so that we can go and address the portion where the trains were before, but the actual service should stay pretty much the same.

It was an interesting question.

OK, what was the reason for locating the PED bridge within where it currently is between the WMATA bridge and the new bridge?

Well, there's that, but I'm guessing there's more to it than that.

During the EIS phase, we looked at several options for the location of the new Ped Bike Bridge, including one option that would have placed it south of the existing rail bridge.

The main reasons that that was not carried forward, one was the fact that it would not allow a connection to Long Bridge Park in Arlington.

because you would then be on the wrong side of the rail bridge to make that connection.

And then also there were concerns about the visual impact.

Thank you, Lee.

And speaking of visual impact, Shirlene, you talked a lot about aesthetics and approvals and things like that.

And someone brought up an interesting thing about how involved this is after several years of study and design and how the process of finalizing the aesthetics

I think that's another one for you, Leigh.

Okay, so yeah, so the NCPC and CFA processes, you need to be a certain kind of, you need far enough along in the process to actually start kind of making decisions about design.

So during the EIS phase, we were really focused on issues related to alignment and narrowing it down to one preferred alternative.

And then once you've done that,

Then we move into the preliminary design and that's why we are now at the point where we are going for the aesthetic approvals.

I think that maybe the thrust of the question that was, what is the trigger?

Is that same, right, Jerica?

After you've gone through all the study, like why do you still have to have people approve it throughout each step?

Right.

Okay.

So the trigger, yeah.

So this location is subject to approvals by the National Capital Planning Commission.

and the Commission on Fine Arts, basically because of its location is the short version of that.

And then SHPO because it's a historic structure and National Park Service because we're on their property.

They obviously want to have a say in what things look like that basically traverse right through their property.

And so we've already seen preliminary concept approval.

for several approval stages you have to get through.

And then as we get these final designers on board, they'll come up with their final refinements to the design.

Thank you.

We will have you all answer one more question.

And this is about the construction timeline.

So we have mapped it out for construction to take about five years, five plus years.

is this person is wondering kind of why that is set up that way.

Is it because of the complexity of the project?

You were talking about just a little bit about the complexities of just all who's involved in that.

It's because it's not really a long corridor.

So can you guys give us a little bit better of an idea of why that timeline is set up in the way that it is?

Yeah, I mean, it basically comes down to having to operate the freight and passenger rail, you know, through this corridor as we're building around it.

It's going to be very complex, definitely going to be lots of, you know, work stoppages to allow trains to pass, you know, lots of traffic switches.

As we build one section, we'll have to then move trains to that so that we can go build another section.

And so, yes, it doesn't seem like it would take that long.

And honestly, it shouldn't take that long for the portion that's built offline.

For the portion where we're building that two track corridor to four tracks, it's definitely going to take every bit of that five years in order to get that done.

Over the river, I know there are a lot of reasons why it will take a while.

But you can't drive prials at night.

That limits also your work windows because you can't make all that noise at night when you go to dry piles.

We're going to have to splice them or whatever in order to stay under that flight path while also not keeping people up at night.

We have a construction manager on board who's been really walking through how they would build it and looking at how quickly they could get it done and just giving us that schedule.

And we have gotten questions in the past about the bike ped bridge.

and when it will get done.

And since it's so tight, what we've been seeing for the sort of the concept now is that you're sort of building a temporary trestle over the river and building the rail bridge and then as you're rearranging the temporary trestle you're constructing the finishing up the bike ped bridge in its footprint.

It's just a really tight area to work in so it requires a little bit of that extra

Awesome.

Well, thank you all for spending some time with us this evening.

Thank you, Senator Eben, for joining us.

Again, please share your questions and comments with us via the survey or stay connected on social media.

Again, if your questions were not answered here in the presentation, we will submit them, written answers for you.

So please stay tuned.

Take a look at the project information on the website.

We also will have the presentation and a recording of the meeting so you can review it on our website when it's back up and running for your review as well.

Again, thank you everyone.

Thank you to the project team for your expertise and insight.

Please enjoy the rest of your evening and we look forward to

Excellent.

Thanks everyone.