Whitney Young Memorial Bridge - Planning

Planning

The need for a new bridge spanning the Anacostia River was first identified in 1949 after worsening traffic at Barney Circle led to widespread citizen complaints. The bridge was proposed to cross the Anacostia by extending East Capitol Street over the river. This bridge was opposed by the National Capital Park and Planning Commission (NCPPC), which asked that a bridge be built by extending Massachusetts Avenue SE through the undeveloped Hill East/Reservation 13 area and connecting it with its namesake street in the Greenway neighborhood on the east side of the river. The Commission was supported by an influential group of business people and civic leaders known as the Committee of 100 on the Federal City. D.C. officials, however, opposed this route for fear of the negative effects it would have on nearby Gallinger Hospital (later renamed D.C. General Hospital). On December 29, 1949, the three D.C. Commissioners (then the sole government of the District of Columbia) approved a bridge at East Capitol Street.

But just three weeks later, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge opened across the Anacostia River, alleviating traffic congestion in southeast. A few days later, the NCPPC voted to suspend approval for any new bridge across the Anacostia River until traffic patterns and congestion around the existing bridges were resolved and the need for a new span made clear. Federal engineers said that study would take two months. Members of the United States House of Representatives from the state of Maryland, whose state would be impacted by eastbound traffic from any new bridge, favored the East Capitol Street site and encouraged the D.C. Commissioners to bring the fight to Congress for resolution. In early March 1950, the Subcommittee on District Appropriations of the House Committee on Appropriations turned down a request to fund a study of the Massachusetts Avenue site, and the Subcommittee on the District of Columbia of the House Committee on Expenditures in the Executive Departments held hearings which supported the D.C. Commissioners. The Subcommittee on the District of Columbia estimated that reconstructing ramps and reconfiguring traffic patterns around existing bridges would cost $9.5 million, while building a new bridge would cost about the same. Federal highway officials also testified that the bridge would help ease access to Maryland Route 214, which was originally planned to connect with the Baltimore–Washington Parkway at the District line but which had been forced into a more southerly direction. Members of Congress inspected both the Massachusetts Avenue SE and East Capitol Street sites, and the House Subcommittee approved the East Capitol span in mid-March 1950.

A $395,000 contract studying the two sites was granted to the J.E. Greiner Co. of Baltimore, Maryland, on September 9, 1950. The company was also asked to study whether the approaches from the west to the East Capitol Street span would travel along that street or be divided between Independence Avenue SE and C Street NE. D.C. highway officials gave their approval to the East Capitol Street span on May 1, 1950. The Greiner Co. had recommended a $2.7 million steel plate girder bridge. The bridge was designed to pass under Minnesota Avenue SE and the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad tracks on the east side of the river and connect with Kenilworth Avenue NE. The cost of the eastern approaches was estimated at $6.7 million. The western approaches would split over Kingman Island and connect Independence Avenue SE and C Street NE. Work on the western approaches was estimated at $2.3 million. The NCPPC approved the plan on May 10, and the United States Army Corps of Engineers did so on August 20. But after a final site visit from the NCPPC in September 1951, the approaches were moved slightly westward. The new approaches required dredging 650,000 cubic yards (500,000 m3) from Kingman Lake and replacing it with sand and gravel to create a gently curving peninsula that extended 800 feet (240 m) into the western side of the lake. 1,300,000 cubic yards (990,000 m3) of fill would be used to raise the peninsula 35 feet (11 m) above the low water mark, and the western approaches built on the new land.