District Department of Transportation officials said Tuesday they are evaluating whether to rebuild the pedestrian bridge at Lane Avenue over I-295, which collapsed last week after a truck hit it.

DDOT Director Everett Lott wouldn’t commit to reconstructing the bridge, saying it had only about 11 people a day use it on average, according to 2014 agency data. Another nearby pedestrian bridge over 295 has about 1,100 users a day, Lott said.

“We are now evaluating what we will be doing in terms of the replacement of the bridge,” Lott said at a press conference Tuesday. “We do have that particular access for residents in those communities to be able to go back and forth across the hallway.”

The collapsed pedestrian bridges go over six lanes of traffic on 295, connecting the Kenilworth and Eastland Gardens neighborhood to Deanwood, as well as to the Minnesota Avenue and Deanwood Metro stations. Nearby train tracks hem in the area.

Lott pointed to other nearby pedestrian bridges, like those at Nash Street NE and an underpass at Deane Avenue NE, as alternatives for travel. The Nash Street bridge is about .2 miles, according to Google Maps. The underpass, which has narrow sidewalks directly next to traffic, is about .3 miles.

But the extra time traveling to those walkways, especially in the high heat or bitter cold, makes things worse for older people, parents having to bring kids along, and people with disabilities, says Mysiki Valentine, who lives in a nearby neighborhood in Ward 7.

“DDOT has little understanding because they do not use nor need the bridge, but the communities being built in Ward 7 deserve passage to Kenilworth and Minnesota Avenue areas,” he says. “The city consistently allows Black spaces, Black communities to deteriorate.”

Valentine says that, ideally, DDOT would work with the federal government to create a tunnel for I-295 and use the top as green space.

“DDOT, as always, does a terrible job at meeting with the community before making decisions, which will never rebuild trust for folks in Ward 7,” Valentine said.

Anthony Lorenzo Green, an ANC commissioner for the nearby district 7C04, said DDOT needs to rebuild the bridge immediately, and not doing so shows where how low some people are on their priority list.

“Deanwood, Kenilworth, Eastland Gardens, Mayfair, Parkside, River Terrace, and many other Black communities in Wards 7 & 8 require historic investments to reconnect Black communities along 295 by reimagining a roadway…or boulevard…that’s built for the people that live, work and worship here,” Lorenzo Green wrote to DCist/WAMU in a statement. “We must rise to this moment to address the racial inequalities in our transportation infrastructure and the harm it has caused for generations.”

The Biden administration has made it a goal of its infrastructure plan to reconnect neighborhoods divided by highway projects of the past that destroyed lower-income Black communities. It’s unclear how much money would go towards projects like that, as the bill is still working its way through Congress.

After the bridge collapse, the road was reopened to traffic in 10 hours, Lott says.

The collapsed bridge was previously rated as being in “poor” condition, and a February 2021 bridge inspection report says “consideration should be given to replacing the bridge.”

But Lott said Tuesday that the bridge, regardless of its condition, would not have survived a hit like the one it experienced.

“This was struck by a truck going at a pretty heavy rate of speed with its lift that was elevated,” he said.

DDOT has rated five of the District’s other 238 bridges as being in “poor” condition, or a “4” on the agency’s 10-point scale: the H Street NE bridge; an on-ramp bridge from Benning Road to Kenilworth Avenue; the Teddy Roosevelt Bridge over the Potomac; the South Capitol Street bridge over the Anacostia River; and an Anacostia Freeway bridge over Suitland Parkway.

The latter two are being replaced as part of the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge project. All others, like the H Street bridge, are undergoing design for reconstruction. 

Lott emphasized on Tuesday that those bridges are still “safe for vehicles and for pedestrians to use every day,” and that the “4” rating simply alerts the DDOT team “to begin making plans for replacement.” 

“But I want to reiterate, it is still safe for pedestrians and for vehicles to use,” Lott said, adding that the city does not have any bridges rated lower than a 4.

A “1” rating means the bridge needs to be closed, while a “2” means officials should consider closing it. A “3” signals that officials should pay closer attention to the structure and also consider closing it, DDOT Chief Engineer Dawit Muluneh said Tuesday. Muluneh says a bridge inspection involves thousands of points of inspections. 

Bridge inspectors examine the concrete on the bridge deck, the superstructure beams (where the deck sits on top) and the substructure (the footings and girders underneath), following federal criteria for evaluation. 

The H Street bridge’s $215 million replacement project is in the design phase, and is set to be done by 2027.

This story was updated to include information about DDOT’s bridge rating system.