Columbia bridges included in Safe and Sound Bridges plan

The Safe and Sound Bridges Project is an update of the MoDOT plan.

By Eva Dou

Published Sept. 22, 2008

After two years of delays, Missouri is proceeding with altered plans to fix 802 of its worst bridges, including half a dozen around Columbia.

The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission unanimously passed the Safe and Sound Bridges Project on Thursday to use public bonds to fund the five-year $700 million project.

Construction on the first 100 bridges will begin next spring, said Bob Brendel, Missouri Department of Transportation outreach coordinator.

Six bridges in the Columbia area are targeted under the plan, Brendel said.

The department uses a nine-point scale with nine being a new bridge and one being bridges in complete disrepair. A bridge that reaches a ranking of two must be closed. The bridges in the Columbia area are all ranked as either four or three.

Of the Columbia bridges, Brendel said those on the outer road of Interstate 70 are the oldest, while those over I-70 have seen fewer years but more traffic. 

Trouble in the nation's credit market forced MoDOT to abandon a plan proposed in 2006 to repair the bridges with private funding - a plan that won the praise of U.S. Secretary of Transportation Mary Peters - because rising interest rates made that plan too expensive.

The original plan called for a contract with a single company, Missouri Bridge Partners, which would have fully shouldered the costs to repair all the bridges and maintain them for 25 years. The contractor would have then been repaid from federal bridge funds, Brendel said.

Transportation officials opted for a more traditional publicly funded plan that would save $300 million to $500 million, State Highway Commissioner Mike Kehoe said. Individual contracts will be awarded to different contractors next spring, and the state will take responsibility for future maintenance.

"At a time when we are faced with declining revenues and increasing costs, the Commission was concerned we might not be able to honor our commitments in MoDOT's five-year construction program if we went forward at a price over our budget," MoDOT Director Pete Rahn stated in a news release. "Keeping our promises is the Commission's absolute top priority."

The newly proposed plan will cost the state about $50 million a year, compared to $65 million to $74 million annually under the original plan.

"The team that we've been working with was a fantastic group of contractors but they just couldn't do it for the price we needed," Kehoe said. "Whenever we can save money on a project, that money goes back into the system to other projects, and that's good news for the folks here."

With almost one in five, or more than 4,000 Missouri bridges deemed "structurally deficient" by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the state ranks near the top for bridge disrepair. MoDOT lists 1,100 bridges as being in "poor" or "serious" condition, and officials said they hope to tackle the majority of these with the project.

Many of the 802 infrastructures selected are small, rural bridges, said Don Hillis, MoDOT director of system management.

"They are structurally deficient and in poor condition," Hillis said.

Within the next few weeks, MoDOT officials will determine which bridges will be part of the first 100, Brendel said. Work on the first 100 bridges will begin within a year.

To find the locations of the bridges and additional information, visit www.modot.org/safeandsound.