The City of Alexandria and Arlington County announce the opening of The Four Mile Run Pedestrian-Cyclist Professional Bridge Competition and Call for Qualifications.  This competition marks the beginning of the design process for the first of these bridges. The Bridge Design Competition website includes background, site information, qualifications and submission requirements. Professional teams may also submit questions and receive answers through the project website. A professional team will be chosen after three tiers of evaluation and a presentation of their work and conceptual design in a public forum.

The bridge will connect the trail near South Eads Street in Arlington to the trail near Commonwealth Avenue in Alexandria, as set forth in the Four Mile Run Restoration Master Plan. The Master Plan, adopted by Arlington County and the City of Alexandria in 2006, envisions the stream corridor as a location celebrating the diversity and vitality of the surrounding neighborhoods. One component of the Master Plan calls for connections between the two communities through a series of new pedestrian-cyclist bridges.

The first level of evaluation comes under the Technical Committee, which is comprised of representatives from the Virginia Tech Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center (VT-WAAC), Arlington County, the City of Alexandria, and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC). The Technical Committee reviews all applicants for compliance with the qualification criteria. All the teams meeting the criteria move onto the next tier of evaluation.

The second level of evaluation is administered by the Evaluation Committee, which is made up of an Architect, Structural Engineer, Landscape Architect, and one representative each from the Virginia Tech Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center (VT-WAAC), Arlington County, and the City of Alexandria, and one Joint Task Force (JTF) member each from Arlington County and the City of Alexandria. A representative from the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC) will serve in an advisory role. The Evaluation Committee ranks the best entries from the pool of qualified applicants based on design excellence demonstrated in the portfolio to move onto the Selection Panel. To be considered are number of awards for excellence, number of bridge projects at the desired scale and professional standing of the assigned team leader are among the criteria to be used by the Evaluation Committee.

For the third level of evaluation, a representative from VT-WAAC invites the top three finalists from the ranked list to present their work and a conceptual design of the bridge in a public forum. A Selection Panel, comprised of three professionally recognized experts, chooses a final winning team based on their demonstrated ability to exceed the qualification criteria, inspire and communicate well to the public, and excel in design. The Boards and Commissions will have an opportunity to meet the finalists during the public forum.

The Virginia Department of Transportation provided a Transportation Enhancement grant to support the design of the Pedestrian-Cyclist Bridge. The bridge is part of a regional effort by local residents; staff from Arlington County, City of Alexandria, the United States Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) and the Northern Virginia Regional Commission (NVRC); and consultants to restore the ecological and environmental features, recreational opportunities, aesthetics, and urban form of lower Four Mile Run.

This call for Qualifications will be open until December 7, 2009.

Check the project web site for updates
http://www.4milerun.org