Opening of Missouri River Bridge in Jefferson City delayed

The Missouri Department of Transportation announced Friday that the opening of the westbound bridge over the Missouri River in Jefferson City will be delayed.

The bridge was scheduled to reopen by the end of August; a new date has not been determined. At a news conference Friday morning, officials said the process of removing paint from the bridge revealed the structure to be in worse condition than expected.

“As the contractor worked to remove the old paint, the blasting process revealed a structure that was not in as good of condition as we expected,” said David Silvester, district engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Central District. “Because these repairs will take extra time to address, we have no choice but to delay the opening of the bridge.”

MoDOT doesn’t have an new expected opening date because they’re not sure how much more damage they’ll find. They hoping it will be open sometime by October.

“We know this is not what folks want to hear, and we are truly sorry for the inconvenience this delay will cause,” Silvester said. “However, it would be unsafe and imprudent for us to ignore the repairs that need to be made just to meet the project deadline. We hope our customers will understand that and bear with us for a little while longer.”

According to MoDOT, the bridge was built in 1955, and carries an estimated 28,000 vehicles a day.