86 Bridge On Schedule to Re-Open

From today’s NDN:

Neosho, Mo. —

Saturday is the tentative open date for the Spring Branch Bridge over Route 86.

Curbs were poured Tuesday, asphalt work is slated to begin today and fencing still has to go up on the pedestrian portion of the bridge.

“It’s really close,” said Wendy Bruenner, Missouri Department of Transportation community relations specialist.

Work began on the bridge May 24. MoDOT originally planned to close the bridge May 17, but weather delayed the project and they waited just a few days more so that the school district did not have to re-route busses for the last few days of school.

MoDOT estimated tearing out the old bridge and pouring a new one would take 30 to 45 days and has stuck within their original estimate, turning the project in just over a month. Concrete poured last Tuesday still has to cure, but the agency is hopeful for a Saturday open.

The new bridge, just east of the Neosho National Fish Hatchery, replaces one built in 1914.

Decking was bad on the old bridge and when it was torn down the new one got an extra inch in its curb-to-curb measurement, making it 24-feet across and the addition of a 5-foot walk path.

The Neosho bridge is one of 54 currently under construction in the state’s Safe & Sound Bridge Improvement Program. Nearly 600 of the 800 bridges in the program are still on the state’s “to do” list, including Seneca’s Lost Creek bridge, which is slated for construction in the spring of 2011. Marked by a blue and white “Safe & Sound” sign, some 150 bridges have been completed.

There are 10,249 bridges in the MoDOT system putting Missouri seventh in the nation for the number of state-maintained bridges. The five-year project is expected to cost $700 million.