After decades of discussion, planning and delays, the Illinois and Missouri Departments of Transportation took an important, and visible, first step forward today to building the new $640 million, 4-lane bridge across the Mississippi River on the northern edge of downtown St. Louis. Today, crews began drilling in the river to gather data necessary for final design of the piers for the new bridge. Drilling is being done by Geotechnology, Inc. under a contract to HNTB, designer for the structure.
Crews are using a barge to support the equipment needed to drill in the river between the Martin Luther King and McKinley bridges downtown. According to the Illinois and Missouri Departments of Transportation, the data gathered will determine the makeup of the riverbed and the exact depth of the bedrock, allowing designers to determine the size and shape of the piers. Work is scheduled to be completed in early October.
Since the early 1990s, the RCGA has been a staunch civic advocate of this important regional project. In 1998, the Private Sector Infrastructure Council (PSIC) spearheaded a civic campaign to articulate a vision for our region's infrastructure, including the bridge. The campaign helped create a greater cohesiveness among the regional business community, public officials (state and federal), for pursuing funding for the bridge and other priority projects. In 2001, the PSIC made the bridge an integral part of its comprehensive Metro Action Plan to further heighten awareness of the need for the new bridge and other regional projects.
In 2002, RCGA and our business community partners in Missouri and Illinois successfully mounted a major successful federal lobbying effort to position the bridge in new, multi-year highway legislation being drafted. Members of the business community made several trips to Washington D.C. to meet with our Congressional delegation, showing our support for their work to include the new bridge in the new multi-year transportation bill. The 2005 adoption of a new transportation bill, SAFETEA-LU, included $239 million for the new bridge - the largest amount of funds dedicated for a single project in that bill. Missouri Sen. Kit Bond and Illinois Congressman Jerry Costello successfully led the Senate and House actions on this vital project.
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