Repairs To Arlington Memorial Bridge Postponed: Report

ARLINGTON, VA — The Arlington Memorial Bridge will be open after all this weekend after the National Park Service postponed scheduled repairs that would have closed the bridge, according to a report.

WJLA reports that the bridge had been scheduled to close at 10 p.m. Friday and last throughout the weekend, but the contractor wanted to order additional items before starting the work.

Repairs are now scheduled to begin at 10 p.m. on Nov. 15. Authorities plan to keep it closed until 5 a.m. that Monday in the hopes of reopening it in time for rush hour, according to the report.

Crews have already completed repairs on the eastbound lanes of the bridge, and are now focusing on the westbound lanes.

The repairs are part of a $227 million project to restore the aging bridge, which has been badly in need of repairs for a while. Repair work started in 2018, and we are now at around the midway point of the project.

It is one of the largest transportation projects in NPS history. The service had to make emergency repairs to the bridge over the last few years leading up to this project in order to keep the bridge open. If NPS hadn't been able to secure the funding, the bridge would have been totally shut down by 2021.

Arlington Memorial Bridge is a stone arch bridge that crosses the Potomac River, starting from Arlington National Cemetery on the west side of the river and ending at the Lincoln Memorial on the east side. It was first proposed in 1886 but construction did not begin until 1932.

Up until now, the bridge had never had a major overhaul in its long history. Concerns over a lack of funding led the NPS to issue a statement in 2016 warning of the bridge's closure in the next few years.