The Gasconade River Bridge that carried Route 66 near Hazelgreen, Missouri, will remain closed indefinitely because the state lacks the funds to repair or replace it, according to a news release Monday from the Missouri Department of Transportation.
MoDOT officials closed the bridge in December after an inspection found worse-than-expected deterioration of the 90-year-old span. Officials examined the bridge more thoroughly last month to see whether a solution could be found.
“The repairs needed to reopen the bridge to traffic are much more extensive and expensive than we anticipated,” said David Silvester, MoDOT’s Central District engineer. “At a minimum, it would cost more than $1 million to repair the current bridge, and then it could only carry limited weight loads. That’s money we just don’t have in our budget right now and don’t expect to have anytime in the near future.”
The least-cost option to open the bridge to traffic would involve MoDOT crews performing the repair work at an estimated cost of up to $1.5 million depending on how long the work would take, which could be up to 11 months.
Even if the department had the money to spend on repairing the bridge, Silvester said, the structure would still have a bad deck and be limited to carrying loads of 20 tons or less, meaning tractor trailers would be prohibited from crossing the bridge.
MoDOT also said replacing the bridge would cost up to $4.5 million.
News of the bridge’s closure led the creation of a “Repair, Don’t Replace” page on Facebook dedicating to saving the bridge. Members of the group are working to send documents to nominate the bridge to the National Register of Historic Places — a move that would make it much more difficult for the state to destroy it. The group also is exploring funding alternatives to pay for the bridge’s repairs.
MoDOT also recently announced it would cut maintenance funding to many secondary roads because of declining revenues.
(Image of the Gasconade River Bridge by Jonathan Sharp via Flickr)
Sad. This is our nation’s transportation heritage…. I would like to see this one day. Route 66 is on my bucket list.
That’s too bad. How will Route 66 road warriors drive on the original route then? I don’t think there’s another road around it, is there? I’m just glad I was able to travel over it when I went on vacation several times and took pix of it
“MoDOT also recently announced it would cut maintenance funding to many secondary roads because of declining revenues.” = “Missouri legislators overrode Governor Jay Nixon’s veto of the first income tax cut since 1921. Proponents championed the bill’s passage as “real progress” and proof that “the race to [a zero percent income tax] is on.”
I mean, nobody should have to pay taxes, right? Taxes are only spent on stupid things America doesn’t need.
(walks away, shaking head sadly)