Drivers crossing the Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge between Calvert and St. Mary’s counties should expect overnight delays starting Tuesday, as state highway crews begin a three-night maintenance closure on the span that carries Route 4 traffic over the Patuxent River.
The Maryland Department of Transportation State Highway Administration will close a single lane and alternate traffic in the remaining open lane using an overnight flagging operation Tuesday, Aug. 4, through Thursday, Aug. 6, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. each night. Portable variable message signs will alert drivers to the upcoming work, and SHA is advising motorists to build in extra travel time and stay alert while passing through the work zone. The agency did not specify the exact nature of the maintenance work being performed.
The closures affect one of only two Patuxent River crossings serving Southern Maryland, a bottleneck that has shaped regional traffic patterns since the bridge opened nearly five decades ago. The Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge — often called the Solomons Bridge or the Thomas Johnson Bridge locally — connects Solomons in Calvert County with St. Mary’s County, spanning 1.37 miles across the lower Patuxent at a height of roughly 135 feet. It opened to traffic Dec. 17, 1977, after a construction process that took 11 years from initial planning, including opposition from the U.S. Navy over the bridge’s original proposed location near the Navy’s mine-testing range at Point Patience. The project’s cost ballooned from an initial $10 million budget to roughly $26 million by completion.
Traffic volume on the bridge has vastly outpaced what planners originally anticipated. When it opened, the span was expected to carry about 1,400 vehicles a day; current volume runs closer to 33,000 vehicles daily, according to state figures, making the two-lane bridge a significant daily chokepoint for commuters and other traffic moving between the two counties. The bridge briefly closed for about two months in 1988 for emergency structural repairs after inspectors found problems with as many as two dozen of its support piers, prompting the addition of reinforcing braces still visible on the structure today.
That traffic growth has fueled a long-running push among Southern Maryland’s elected officials for a replacement span. Local and federal representatives, including members of Maryland’s congressional delegation, have visited Solomons in recent years to discuss options for a wider, four-lane crossing to replace the aging two-lane bridge, though state transportation officials have said such a project — likely to cost in the hundreds of millions of dollars — remains years away from serious funding consideration. In the meantime, the existing span continues to require periodic maintenance work like this week’s flagging operation to keep it safely in service.
The bridge’s name itself was a point of local debate before it opened. A Calvert County official pushed to name the crossing after Thomas Johnson, Maryland’s first elected governor, who served during the Revolutionary War, while some St. Mary’s County residents at the time favored naming it for Leonard Calvert, the colony’s first governor. Johnson’s name ultimately prevailed, and the bridge remains one of relatively few fixed crossings connecting the two rural, water-bound counties, alongside the Benedict Bridge roughly 20 miles upriver linking Calvert and Charles counties via Route 231.
SHA said the overnight timing of this week’s work is intended to minimize disruption to daytime traffic, though drivers making late-night trips across the Calvert-St. Mary’s county line should plan accordingly. The agency’s broader “Toward Zero Deaths” work zone safety campaign urges both pedestrians and motorists to avoid distractions and obey posted speed limits when driving through active construction areas, where crews are working in close proximity to moving traffic.
A full list of current State Highway Administration projects, along with statewide travel information, is available at roads.maryland.gov.
