January 2013
Ground Broken for Daniel Boone Bridge Construction
As dignitaries spoke and raised shovels of symbolic dirt to kick off construction of a new Daniel Boone Bridge span Thursday morning, one lane of eastbound Interstate 64 was closed at the bridge and workers were busy moving utilities in preparation for the $111 million project.
A new eastbound span, scheduled for completion by the end of 2014, will replace the old westbound span. Westbound traffic will shift to the old eastbound span after the new bridge is built.
The groundbreaking ceremony on the St. Louis County side of the Missouri River marked the start of the second major bridge project under way between St. Charles and St. Louis counties. A yearlong project to rebuild the westbound span of the Blanchette Memorial Bridge at St. Charles began in November.
Because demolition of the westbound Boone bridge, built in 1935, won't occur until after the new span is completed, officials expect no lane reductions as there are at Blanchette, where 10 lanes of I-70 traffic were reduced to six lanes, three in each direction on Blanchette's eastbound span.
"There should be very minimal impact to the traveling public with this bridge," said Ed Hassinger, St. Louis district engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation. "Most of the work is going to be done upstream of the existing bridges. People shouldn't worry about traffic impacts here. The work today is getting utilities out of the way so we can go to work." [Click here to continue reading]
Walsh Construction Co. of Chicago and J.S. Alberici Construction Co. of St. Louis are the joint venture contractors for the Boone project. Walsh also is doing the work on the $63 million Blanchette project. Burns & McDonnell is the Boone bridge project designer.