National Park Service construction projects across the country will be delayed so funding can be used for needed repairs to the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C./NPS

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke on Friday afternoon announced a $227 million plan to make critical repairs to the Arlington Memorial Bridge in Washington, D.C. While he said the project as bid will save taxpayers $35 million, it also will take a quarter of the National Park Service's annual construction fund budget and lead to delays in construction projects elsewhere in the National Park System.

“Repairing Arlington Memorial Bridge underscores President Trump’s commitment to rebuilding American infrastructure and is a major step in addressing the National Park Service’s $11.3 billion maintenance backlog,” Secretary Zinke said in a release. “The bridge is one of the largest transportation infrastructure projects in National Park Service history.”

Earlier this year the Federal Highway Administration told the Park Service that, due to the bridge's deterioriating condition, the span would be closed to traffic in 2021 without a full rehabilitation. 

Back in February the Park Service announced that it had received a Fiscal Year 2016 $90 million matching grant through the Fostering Advancements in Shipping and Transportation for the Long-term Achievement of National Efficiencies (FASTLANE) grant program to contribute towards the estimated cost of a full rehabilitation. The agency also was ready to commit $50 million of its Federal Lands Transportation Program funding to this project. 

On Friday the Interior Department said the $227 million would come, in part, from $74 million in Federal Lands Transportation Program funds along with $33 million, or roughly one-fourth, of the Park Service's annual construction budget. Another $30 million was made available through an amendment U.S. Sen. Mark Warner, D-Virginia, attached to the Fiscal 2017 Appropriations Act, and the remaining $90 million from a FASTLANE grant.

"Other National Park Service construction projects across the country will be delayed" due to the heavy use of agency construction funds, Park Service spokesman Jeremy Barnum told the Traveler in an email. He did not immediately identify which projects would be affected.

At the Coalition to Protect America's National Parks, Phil Francis said the need to drain a quarter of the construction budget on this one project shows the dire straits the Park Service is in, funding-wise.

“Given the funds at the appropriations level, I don’t know what else they would have done," he said. "The problem again is the lack of appropriations from Congress. They should be funding a project like that and the other line item construction items. ... We’re never going to be able to adequately address the road backlog needs, as well as other backlog needs, with insufficient funds.”

Marcia Argust, director of the Restore America's Parks Campaign at the Pew Charitable Trusts, said much the same.

“That just goes back to why we need dedicated annual funding, and more funding, to address park maintenance," she said. "The bridge project is very important. We want it addressed for safety reasons, but you don’t want to be delving into other projects and delaying other projects, especially if they’re other priority projects.

“We want to be able to see more transportation projects addressed," Ms. Argust added. "It’s half of the backlog, but we’ve got to have other options to generate revenue to address the backlog.”

Major construction will start in fall 2018. It will replace the drawbridge span, rehabilitate the concrete approach spans, and replace the concrete deck. Workers will employ accelerated bridge construction techniques, including using prefabricated concrete deck panels. They will reset the stone curbs and light posts and restore the historic stone and metal cladding. The structure of the existing bascule span will be replaced with variable depth steel girders, which will significantly extend the useful life of the bridge while significantly reducing maintenance costs. The NPS will begin minor repairs to the bridge by the beginning of 2018.

Regarded as Washington’s most beautiful bridge, Memorial Bridge symbolically links North and South in its alignment between the Lincoln Memorial and Arlington House, the Robert E. Lee Memorial. The adjacent Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway terminus, the Watergate steps, and monumental equestrian statuary join with the bridge to create a formal western terminus of the National Mall at the edge of the Potomac River.

Designed by the prominent architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White, the low, Neoclassical bridge is 2,163 feet long and 60 feet wide. Except for the bascule (drawbridge) span in the bridge’s center which is clad in metal, it is constructed from reinforced concrete faced with dressed North Carolina granite ashlar. When it opened in 1932, the bridge was the longest, heaviest and fastest opening drawbridge in the world; the drawbridge last opened in 1961. Today, it carries 68,000 cars per day.