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The bridge was named in honor of President Woodrow Wilson, who when elected was serving as Governor of New Jersey but was a native of Virginia. The bridge has serious and well-documented maintenance problems and has undergone continuous patchwork maintenance since the 1970s. The bridge remains in distress, in part because the large volume of traffic that passes over it daily, but a new 12-lane span is being constructed next to the bridge and is estimated to be completed in 2008. The new span will be tall enough to allow boats to pass underneath without having to use a bascule, thus eliminating the large traffic tie-ups that opening the span causes.