(Washington, DC) On Thursday, August 28, the District Department of Transportation will close the outbound curb lane on the Roosevelt Bridge to start a $3 million, three-month emergency repair project to the forty-year-old structure. Both curb lanes have been badly damaged by normal wear-and-tear and the numerous freeze-thaw cycles of last winter's severe weather.

The existing movable barrier will allow DDOT to maintain four lanes of inbound and two lanes outbound traffic in the morning rush-hour. In the afternoon rush-hour, there will be three lanes in each direction. The sidewalk on the non-work side will be open to pedestrians and bicyclists. An additional lane adjacent to the work zone will be occupied by the contractor as the work requires.

The Roosevelt Bridge, between Arlington, Virginia and the District, is not only a crucial commuter artery for 100,000 vehicles every weekday, it is also critical for the homeland defenses of the nation's capital. It connects downtown Washington with Fort Myer, the Pentagon and other important federal installations in Virginia and provides redundant transportation capacity in case of a 9/11-type event or other emergency.

Bridges across the country share many of the problems that are affecting the Roosevelt Bridge. This national need to fix our nation's bridges was highlighted by Mayor Anthony A. Williams and Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton who were joined by Senator Jim Jeffords, ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, and Congressman Don Young, chair of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, at a July press conference at the Kennedy Center overlooking the bridge. They all urged Congress to pass and fund the Surface Transportation Reauthorization Bill (i.e. renewal of TEA-21) to provide funds to meet the nation's transportation needs.

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