Chesapeake Bay Bridge rebuild for $16.4 billion sparks controversy

Washingtonians' passageway to the beach, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge, is in the works to be rebuilt, and some aren’t thrilled about the plans.

The Bay Bridge acts as Washington residents’ summer escape route across the Chesapeake Bay. An expanded version would speed up commutes to the beach.

The Maryland Transportation Authority board voted unanimously in December to approve a plan to build two new four-lane bridges with shoulders, according to ABC 7. The old Bay Bridge spans would be torn down after the building is complete.

The Bay Bridge project is estimated to cost $16.4 billion. This number breaks down to $4.4 billion for expanding the bridge from five to eight lanes on top of the $12 billion overall replacement cost.

Greater Washington’s David Edmonson, a transportation planner and founding consultant with Edmondson Planning and Design, is not particularly excited. He thinks planners should have included transit like the Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas Brightline train.

Edmonson said that planners relied on pre-pandemic ridership trends that aren’t up-to-date now, and he expressed distaste for the flawed system.

“MDTA damned transit with a geographic double standard and comically poor cost and ridership models, and it relied on pre-pandemic travel demand forecasts based on optimistic and static land-use plans to demonstrate a surge in demand, thereby excluding narrower options,” according to Edmonson.

However, the process is in the works, and MDTA hopes a final “record of decision” will be issued, with design work beginning in the spring of 2028. Construction will not begin until the summer of 2032 at the earliest.

The plan also invites the possibility of a bike and pedestrian path on the bridge, although state officials say that could add over a billion dollars to the estimated cost of the new bridge, according to ABC 7.

The original Chesapeake Bay Bridge opened in July 1952 with just one span. The second span opened in June 1973.

There is no estimate yet on when the new bridges could open, and state officials warn the current estimated cost could increase.