Construction on the Washington Blvd (Route 27) bridge near the Pentagon and Arlington National Cemetery is now complete.
The newly reconstructed bridge was renamed Arlington Veterans Bridge in honor of the county’s veterans; it maintains the original design spanning over Route 110, recently renamed as Richmond Highway.
Arlington County shared a video this week spotlighting the completion of the bridge this past May. The span was originally built in the 1940s.
“The substructure includes granite, which is not a very common material that we use in our bridges these days,” said VDOT Project Development Engineer Nicholas Roper, who is also a retired Army colonel.
Roper explained that crews were able to widen the bridge and add granite cladding to the structure, adding that, “three of the original piers from the 1940s still remain.”
As part of the reconstruction, VDOT added a sidewalk on one side of the bridge and a 14-foot wide path, which opened in 2017, on the other side for pedestrians and cyclists.
“It’s a place where daily residents of Arlington County and thousands of individuals… traverse the bridge,” said retired Army Col. Joseph A. Simonelli Jr., who chairs the county’s Military and Veterans and Committee, which recommended the name.
“It honors the 13,000 current Arlington veterans,” said Simonelli. “And the millions of veterans in our nation. And as a veteran, it makes me proud.”