MoDOT inspects I-70 bridge ahead of rehab
The inspection of the Interstate 70 bridge over the Missouri River at Rocheport this week shouldn’t cause concerns from drivers about the span’s safety, a Missouri Department of Transportation engineer said Monday.
The inspections are part of the planning and preparation for a 2020 rehabilitation project on the bridge.
“We have to do a rehab project on this bridge in 2020,” MoDOT engineer Mike Schupp said. “It was scheduled for 2019 but we pushed that rehab project back one year to wait the outcomes of Proposition D.”
Proposition D was a plan to increase fuel taxes by 10 cents over four years that voters defeated in November.
MoDOT officials say the agency does not have the funds to completely rebuild the bridge after voters rejected the tax increase. Because of this, Schupp said, the department will repair the bridge and get “another 10 years of life” out of it.
“We know that the rehab project is probably going to run between $15 million to $18 million,” Schupp said. “As far as condition rating, we expect that the bridge will probably fall into poor condition.”
However, MoDOT state bridge engineer Dennis Heckman said poor does not mean “unsafe.” He said if the bridge became unsafe, MoDOT would shut it down.
The bridge was last inspected in July.
At the time of the inspection, the condition of the bridge was listed as “fair.”
“There’s a national system for how you judge and score bridges, and it’s a scale of 2 to 9, where 9 is brand new,” Heckman said.
He said during last year’s bridge inspection, the bridge was graded at a 5. The bridge is listed as “poor” once the inspection number is graded at a 4.
“We have over 900 poor bridges on the MoDOT system, but they’re not on I-70 with a long detour carrying traffic across the Missouri River,” Heckman said. “So we’re trying to see if there are repairs we can make to keep this bridge from dropping into the poor category.”
Heckman said one of the results of the inspection will be to determine whether the bridge will drop into the poor category or not.
The following schedule of lane closures was released by MoDOT and is listed as weather permitting:
Monday and Tuesday – One eastbound lane of I-70 will be closed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Wednesday and Thursday – One westbound lane of I-70 will be closed from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday – One eastbound lane of I-70 will be closed from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday – One westbound lane of I-70 will be closed from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. April 1 – One eastbound lane of I-70 will be closed from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 2 and April 3 – One westbound lane of I-70 will be closed from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m.
The department said only one lane of I-70 will be closed in one direction each day and that the closures are scheduled at non-peak travel times.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/MoDOT_Central/status/1108769890524151808″,”author_name”:”MoDOT Central Dist”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/MoDOT_Central”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;I-70 MO RIVER BRIDGE INSPECTION at ROCHEPORT: Have questions about next week’s I-70 bridge inspection at Rocheport (March 25-April 3)? Area Engineer Mike Schupp is here to answer a few frequently asked questions about the inspection & traffic. For more: &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/s2LZOR5UmJ”&#gt;https://t.co/s2LZOR5UmJ&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/XGpIiaW3Pm”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/XGpIiaW3Pm&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– MoDOT Central Dist (@MoDOT_Central) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/MoDOT_Central/status/1108769890524151808?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;March 21, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
Transportation officials advise drivers to allow extra travel time as these inspections are underway.
MoDOT also reminded drivers in a press release to use the “zipper merge” technique while approaching the work zone.
{“url”:”https://twitter.com/JoeABC17/status/1110110849287495680″,”author_name”:”Joe McLean”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JoeABC17″,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;ZIPPER MERGE: Good reminder for drivers as the &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/MoDOT_Central?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@MoDOT_Central&#lt;/a&#gt; inspections of the I-70 Missouri River bridge in Rocheport begins today. Lane closures will be alternating until next Wednesday. &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/ABC17News?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#ABC17News&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/SYmk1dhnKz”&#gt;https://t.co/SYmk1dhnKz&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/LAWzvnFjal”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/LAWzvnFjal&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;– Joe McLean (@JoeABC17) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JoeABC17/status/1110110849287495680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;March 25, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″}
“When motorists use both lanes of traffic until reaching the defined merge area and then alternate in ‘zipper’ fashion into the open lane, the overall length of the traffic backup could be reduced by 40-50 percent,” the press release said.
More information about the zipper merge can be found by following this link.
