The bridge is 76 years old and carries about 90,000 vehicles a day. Skanska will spend the next several years making sure it carries them for another 75.
The District Department of Transportation, working with the Federal Highway Administration, selected Skanska for a $114 million design-build rehabilitation of the I-395 northbound bridge over the Potomac River, the contractor announced Sept. 8. The span is formally the Arland D. Williams Jr. Memorial Bridge, named for the passenger who handed the rescue line to others after Air Florida Flight 90 hit it in 1982.
Vessel protection is the headline scope
The centerpiece is replacing the vessel protection system on the bascule piers, along with the bridge barrier, to comply with current collision requirements. That’s a direct descendant of the Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore and the national reassessment of pier protection that followed it. Agencies that once treated fender systems as maintenance items now treat them as structural risk.
The rest of the package is conventional but substantial: rehabilitating the superstructure on the approach spans and replacing secondary components including overhead sign structures.
Working over water, under traffic
The bridge is less than half a mile long and four lanes wide, which sounds manageable until you account for the traffic. Ninety thousand vehicles a day on a primary car and freight route between the District and Arlington leaves almost no room for lane closures outside tight overnight windows.
Design-build is the right delivery here for that reason. Sequencing marine work around bascule operations and river traffic is easier when the designer and the contractor answer to the same schedule. Construction is slated to begin in early 2027.
Where this fits
Federal and district agencies have kept civil work moving through a shaky funding year. The same week, the Coast Guard awarded Brasfield & Gorrie $45 million for waterfront repairs in Atlantic Beach, Florida, and Granite Construction picked up $23.7 million from FHWA for road rehabilitation in Glacier National Park. That’s roughly $183 million in federally touched civil scope in a single week, most of it repair rather than new capacity.
Seventy-five more years on a 1950 structure is a good trade at $114 million. The question is how many more 1950 structures are waiting behind it.