Photo by andertho

Martin already mentioned the city’s announcement that major work on the 14th Street bridges will commence this month and continue on for two years, but here are some of the finer details, released by DDOT and the mayor’s office yesterday:

• Total construction time: an estimated two years. Total cost: $27 million.
• The worst of the construction related delays for morning in-bound commuters will go on during the first year only, when the northbound bridge will be completely resurfaced. DDOT plans to maintain four lanes of northbound traffic during the peak morning commute by shifting lanes, plus, the HOV bridge will not be affected. Still, they aren’t sugar coating it. Surface reconstruction is going to require narrowing traffic lanes, removing the shoulders, and changing traffic patterns, all of which are going to make traveling across the bridge a slow-moving, tedious mess.
• These are the city’s suggestions for how to deal with the next year’s worth of delays: Ride-sharing, so you can use the HOV bridge; Making the switch to Metrorail or Virginia Railway Express; Asking your employers to adjust your work schedule or location; or using another route, especially the new Wilson Bridge. You get the sense from their language that the city is really trying to implement a scared straight philosophy for this project. In other words: don’t just figure you can still use the bridge every day like normal. This is gonna blow.
• Yes, there is a web site for this project, and if you plan to use the 14th Street bridge at any time over the next year, you should probably bookmark it: www.ddot.dc.gov/14thstreetbridge

More from the announcement, after the jump.