Highway construction crews were out in force Tuesday getting ready for several years of work to upgrade the Telegraph Road interchange at the beltway, the final major contract of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project.

The $236 million effort to reconstruct the interchange may take drivers a while to get used to the lane shift.  Outer loop traffic now begins merging from four lanes down to three lanes about a mile sooner that it used to, at the Eisenhower Avenue connector exit instead of Telegraph Road.

In February, the Commonwealth Transportation Board awarded a $236.4-million contract to rebuild the I-95 interchange at Telegraph Road,

Construction will take five years to complete. Building an improved Telegraph Road Interchange is the final component of the overall $2.52-billion Woodrow Wilson Bridge Project.

Overall, the contract will build 11 ramps and bridges, five box culvert extensions, drainage improvements, retaining walls, noise walls, pedestrian paths, traffic systems, lighting, signage, landscaping and an environmental mitigation project at the Cameron Run Wetlands.

During construction the Telegraph Road Interchange project will be closely coordinated with several additional mega-projects in Northern Virginia, including the building of high-occupancy-toll lanes on I-95 and I-495 and widening I-95.
Business and utility relocations as well as ground strengthening work were completed in advance of the interchange reconstruction.

The work is being carried out by Corman-Kiewit Constructors, a joint venture of Corman Construction and Kiewit Corp.