Virginia Passenger Rail Authority (VPRA) has launched the construction of the new Potomac River rail bridge connects Arlington, Virginia with Washington, DC, allowing for the expansion of rail service to meet future demand.
The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by the Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, the U.S. Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner as well as U.S. Representatives Gerry Connelly and Abigail Spanberger.
The double-track new bridge is constructed next to the existing 119-year-old Long Bridge, creating a four-track corridor and includes construction and improvement for a 3 km track and seven rail bridges and pedestrian bridges. Implemented under the Commonwealth’s Transforming Rail in Virginia (TRV) programme, the USD 2.3 billion project includes infrastructure improvement which will provide increased capacity for passenger rail over the Potomac River.
The new Potomac River rail bridge will relieve the traffic of the existing bridge which currently operates at 98% capacity during peak periods and is one of the largest rail traffic bottlenecks on the East Coast. In addition, the new bridge will aid the state in separating passenger rail from freight rail, improving the on-time performance for both.
“In Virginia, our crippling traffic has truly become a bipartisan issue, and the Long Bridge groundbreaking represents our bipartisan solution. But it’s not just Virginians who will benefit. Travelers from Boston to Miami will feel the effects of this project, and through our Transforming Rail in Virginia initiative, VPRA’s capital investments will add USD 7.2 billion to our economy,” DJ Stadtler, the Executive Director of the VPRA, said.
Transforming Rail is a national model for state-supported passenger rail service that will give Virginians an alternative to driving along congested motorways and interstates. The initiative calls for moving Virginians by using an existing rail corridor and building new infrastructure. When complete, TRV will enable the state’s Amtrak Virginia service to offer a total of 13 daily roundtrips up from eight currently, travelling throughout the state and connecting to the Northeast Corridor.
Freight and passenger rail operators within the project corridor include Amtrak, Virginia Railway Express (VRE) and CSXT. Annually, up to 1.3 million Amtrak passengers and 4.5 million VRE commuters cross the current Long Bridge. The project’s purpose is to create greater rail capacity between Virginia and the District of Columbia while alleviating the rail congestion caused by the existing two-track Long Bridge.
In December 2023, VPRA was awarded a USD 729 million FRA grant to complete the final design and construction of the new bridge and to support all the TRV projects implemented under the second phase.
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