The Missouri Department of Transportation on Thursday will hold the first of three meetings about plans to rehab the Interstate 70 bridge over the Missouri River near Rocheport.
The bridge carries approximately 12.5 million vehicles, including 3.6 million trucks, per year in both directions, MoDOT reported.
But the bridge was built in 1960 and currently is rated in “poor” condition.
The planned $18 million rehabilitation project will include driving surface sealing, expansion joint replacement, partial painting and steel structure repairs — and is expected to extend the life of the current bridge by an additional 10-15 years.
The project is scheduled to be put out for bids in early 2020, with construction beginning in early spring 2020.
More information is available on the project webpage at modot.org/central. Online comments can also be submitted, starting July 18.
Thursday’s meeting will be from 4-6 p.m. at Les Bourgeois Blufftop Bistro on Route BB in Rocheport.
Another meeting will be from 4-6 p.m. July 24 at the Boone County Government Center, 801 E. Walnut St. in Columbia.
A third meeting, also from 4-6 p.m., will be July 30 at Boonville High School, 1690 W. Ashley Road in Boonville.
“We come and present information, and then we listen to the feedback from the public,” State Transportation Director Patrick McKenna told the News Tribune.
In the case of the I-70 bridge, McKenna noted: “We’re running a dual track here. We have to do the engineering and the work surrounding a rehabilitation — because we might be forced to do that if we can’t build the wherewithal to replace the bridge.”
MoDOT would prefer to build a new bridge over the Missouri River instead of rehabbing the one that’s there, he said.
“But I’m, at present, about $220 million short of that (goal),” McKenna said.
Missouri has applied for more than $170 million in a federal grant to help build a replacement bridge.
“That’s a very aggressive grant,” he said, “considering the entire national program is about $900 million.”
If the state gets the grant, it would have to come up with the remaining money to build a new bridge.
“We have had several inquiries for additional information, which we’ve provided really quickly,” McKenna said. “That, we feel, is certainly a good sign — but no guarantee of success.”
Getting the grant also would trigger the state’s ability to sell more than $200 million in bonds to repair or replace a number of rural bridges around the state.