It takes a lot of time and money. Neither we, or anyone else, will be willing to spend the time and money necessary to maintain our homes if the roar of traffic from a 244-foot wide bridge through the Historic District penetrates our homes and if our families are sickened by pollution in excess of the EPA's clean air standards. No one in their right mind would want to live near the bridge that the FHWA wants to build. And when we, the residents who are committed to historic preservation, sell our houses at a loss and leave, the commitment to historic preservation will leave with us, and the Historic District will decay and ultimately be lost. I only ask you to look around the country at the blighted neighborhoods that stand at the feet of our large urban bridges.
Nobody wants to live there.
It is simply not possible to maintain a habitable community that is bisected by a 244-foot wide swath of concrete and its attendant traffic. The irony is that a 244-foot wide bridge is not needed. First of all, the beltway will remain at eight lanes for the foreseeable future. Similarly, costs in the billions of dollars will prevent the addition of HOV lanes to the beltway for the foreseeable future, eliminating the need for HOV lanes on the new crossing. Looking back, our problems began when the FHWA decided to limit the Woodrow Wilson Bridge study area to the immediate vicinity of the bridge, instead of including the area ten to fifteen miles south of the bridge.