Nice Bridge over Potomac to open; judge declines to halt demolition of old span

August 30, 2024

Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan will cut the ribbon on a new crossing Wednesday over the Potomac River, one day before the opening of the $463 million span that is months ahead of schedule. Meanwhile, a federal judge Tuesday rejected a plea from bike and trail advocates to save a parallel bridge from demolition.

Hogan (R) announced construction plans in 2016 as part of a far-reaching agenda to upgrade the state’s transportation networks. The biggest elements of that plan — the widening of parts of the Capital Beltway and Interstate 270, and the Purple Line light rail — are years from completion, but the new bridge about 40 miles south of Washington is a victory for Hogan before he leaves office in January.

The plan to open the bridge early was disclosed last week in the midst of a legal battle over an 82-year-old parallel crossing. The Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) plans to begin demolition of the old Governor Harry W. Nice Memorial/Senator Thomas “Mac” Middleton Bridge immediately, but a trio of bike and trail advocacy organizations had sued, asking a federal judge to preserve it so it could be studied as an alternative for pedestrians and cyclists.

Bike groups sue over demolition of Maryland bridge they want for trail

The future of the old bridge fell to U.S. District Judge Deborah L. Boardman, who declined to issue an injunction blocking the demolition Tuesday, saying after a three-hour hearing that the groups hadn’t met standards to halt the plans — a pause the state estimated would cost taxpayers $21,500 each day. The decision appeared to end a years-long dispute, part of a battle over how to accommodate non-drivers on a major river crossing that was designed to last a century.

Boardman cleared the way for demolition to begin Thursday, when the new bridge opens.

“This is a very high bar,” she said of the standard needed to win an injunction.

In questions during the hearing, she seemed especially concerned with engineers’ findings that leaving the old bridge standing would cause safety problems because of erosion of the river bed around the bridge’s foundation, a process known as scour. She also questioned whether the groups had standing to bring a lawsuit.

David Brickley, president of the Dahlgren Railroad Heritage Trail Association, one of the plaintiffs, said after the hearing that he was disappointed with the ruling, adding that the groups did not have money to file an appeal.

“We tried,” he said. “We put up a good fight.”

The existing bridge carries a two-lane stretch of U.S. 301 from Charles County into Virginia’s King George County. The new bridge will add two lanes in an effort to ease a bottleneck across the 1.7-mile span. Hogan visited the bridge in 2016, announcing that he had allocated funding for a replacement and that it would be complete by 2023 — well ahead of a 2030 date mandated by the General Assembly.

The state has clashed with supporters of alternative ways of crossing the lower stretches of the Potomac, a dispute that resembles another taking place closer to Washington.

Montgomery County officials and transit activists have similarly criticized Hogan’s plans for widening the Beltway and I-270, saying those plans will lock in decades of car dominance. As the hearing on the bridge was beginning Tuesday, a coalition of environmental groups announced that it had filed a lawsuit alleging that the environmental review of the Montgomery project was flawed.

At the Potomac bridge, initial plans called for a separated bike and pedestrian crossing — a feature Hogan highlighted in the 2016 announcement — but the idea was abandoned in 2019 as a cost-savings measure. Instead, bicyclists will need to share a lane with cars and trucks, an approach advocates say is too dangerous and makes no provision for pedestrians.

In their lawsuit filed in late September, the advocacy groups alleged that the 2019 design changes weren’t properly evaluated under federal and state environmental laws. The new bridge is complete, but the groups argued that Boardman could still order Maryland to preserve the old bridge — an approach that had the backing of federal lawmakers. Both gubernatorial candidates to succeed Hogan also indicated that they would be interested in revisiting plans for the old bridge, but that won’t be possible after Tuesday’s ruling.

“This administration seems to be on a quest to ensure the old Nice bridge is incapacitated,” Brickley said from the witness stand Tuesday.

The MDTA said in a statement that it appreciated the judge’s ruling. A spokesman for Hogan didn’t respond to a request for comment Tuesday evening on the opening of the bridge.

The agency’s leaders have said there is no way to maintain the old crossing. In court papers filed Saturday, lawyers for the state said the advocacy groups’ plans for the old bridge wouldn’t come to fruition.

“[The] Plaintiffs’ plan for the old bridge is unworkable, unaffordable, and potentially unsafe, as [the] Defendants thoroughly explained to the Plaintiffs and other members of the public years ago,” they wrote, saying demolition crews are assembled and citing hefty expenses to leave the bridge standing.

In a letter to federal lawmakers in July, Maryland Transportation Secretary James F. Ports said there were concerns about scour if the bridge were left standing. Boardman quoted from the letter and raised the issue several times during the hearing.

“There’s evidence the old bridge has to go,” she said.

Officials at the U.S. Department of Transportation delayed approval of a $200 million loan for the bridge last year as they pushed the state for information about the bike path that was removed from the plans.

Stalled federal loan increased the cost of Potomac River crossing

But in court papers also filed Saturday, federal lawyers urged the judge to allow the demolition to move forward this week, saying the advocacy group’s claims involved a disagreement about the best design for the crossing and didn’t amount to a violation of environmental review laws.

“[The] Plaintiffs waited until the new bridge was complete and just days before the demolition of the old bridge is set to begin to seek emergency relief,” they wrote. “[The] Plaintiffs should not benefit from an alleged emergency created by their own choices regarding the timing of this lawsuit.”

State and federal lawyers for the Transportation Department both argued that the separate bike and pedestrian path would have been a minor element of the bridge’s design, one that the state said would have been used for only a tiny fraction of the 7 million annual crossings. Federal lawyers argued that the official “purpose and need” of the bridge related only to traffic issues and that “a bike and pedestrian lane does not further any of those purposes.”

The old bridge, which opened in 1940, would have required a major rehabilitation, state officials say.

Brian Wolfe, the MDTA’s project director, testified Tuesday that officials had been closing in on the new timeline as construction progressed through the summer.

At the same time, the demolition process was expedited after a part of the old bridge fell into the river earlier this year, Wolfe said. That led officials to decide to remove three similar parts and mobilize demolition crews.

After the ribbon-cutting ceremony Wednesday, Wolfe said, traffic will begin to shift onto the new bridge before the old span carries its final vehicle early Thursday.

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