After two decades of planning and debating, the Missouri and Illinois transportation departments have agreed on a funding plan for a new $640-million Mississippi River bridge on Interstate 70 between St. Louis and Illinois suburbs. The goal is to relieve traffic on the interstate.
The Missouri Dept. of Transportation will pay $88 million and MoDOT will be responsible for any construction cost overruns on the bridge structure; Illinois will contribute $313 million. A revised environmental impact statement is awaiting federal approval, along with an expected $239 million in funding, says MoDOT project director Greg Horn. The revised EIS reduced the main span length from 2,000 ft to 1,500 ft as part of the process of cutting costs. Horn notes that in 2001 the bridge was estimated at about $2 billion.