By MATT PIKE
St. Joseph Post
More than 31 rural bridges have been repaired in northern Missouri thanks to the Missouri Department of Transportation’s Farm Bridge program.
The replacements were funded by a $20.8 million Competitive Highway Bridge Program grant from the Federal Highway Administration in 2018, as well as $5.2 million from the Missouri Department of Transportation.
Project director Jeff Gander says completing the project is big for the area as many of the bridges were in various states of deterioration.
"A lot of them they were the old type bridge where the drainage from the bridge just drained off the edge through what we call weep holes, and that's where all that salt that we put on the road gets concentrated," Gander tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. "So, on the overhang of the bridge, where that water runs off the edge, that's where they get really, really deteriorated on the edges."
Gander says many of the bridges had been built between the 1930's and 1950's and were not designed for the loads being put on them these days.
The Farm Bridge program repaired bridges focusing on four key areas: in poor condition, weight restricted, one lane bridges, and supported by timber piling.
Gander says out of the bridges that were repaired, none stood out as more damaged than others.
"As for some of them, if one bridge jumps out at me as being ready to fall down, not really," Gander explains. "We inspect these bridges every year or two years depending on a few other factors, so we know what shape they're in and if they were in really, really bad shape we would have already closed it."
Gander says the grant that helped fund the bridge project was important, because MoDOT has many projects and only so much state funding.
Now that this project is completed, Gander says MoDOT will now turn its attention to another bridge project in the northwest part of Missouri.
"They're in their procurement process right now, I don't know exactly how many bridges they have I think it's in the neighborhood of 30, and they're working with some contractor and consultant teams right now to develop proposals to put that project in motion as well," Gander says. "So, it's kind of the same model as we used but it's using just our normal STIP funds."
Gander says the project is called a bridge bundle project, focusing on a number of bridges, adding that bundling so many projects together provide high value.
