Bridge Ruling Could Mean Truck Ban

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A botched environmental review of the plan to replace the decaying Woodrow Wilson Bridge could force trucks off the crucial Interstate 95 span.

U.S. District Court Judge Stanley Sporkin said more analysis is needed because previous environmental impact studies were conducted on a 10-lane bridge proposal, yet the final design has 12 lanes.

Sporkin said the new studies are required under the Clean Air Act and the National Environmental Protection Act.

Bridge officials warned the judge’s ruling could force them to ban large trucks from the bridge.

"This might delay things and we were already on a razor thin schedule," said John Undeland, a spokesman for the Wilson Bridge Project. "By 2004, the bridge faces functional obsolescence, and after then we’ll either have to ban trucks weighing more than 20,000 pounds or the bridge will require a very substantial multi-lane closing rehabilitation."

Undeland said 14,000 trucks a day would have to be rerouted if a ban were implemented. He said two-thirds of the trucks crossing the Maryland-Virginia bridge deliver to local businesses in the Washington, D.C., area.

"That gives you an indication that the consequences of putting weight limits on the bridge don’t just affect the industry but the people on the other end of those deliveries too," said Mike Russell, a spokesman for American Trucking Associations.

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