I asked the Missouri Department of Transportation to elaborate on its decision to tear down the historic Route 66 bridge at Route 66 State Park.
Andrew Gates, a community relations officer for MoDOT, sent me an e-mail today expanding on the dire condition of the bridge and other matters. A small part of the e-mail has been excised for brevity:
Right now, the Route 66 bridge has multiple problems — the primary one for pedestrians is that the railing is starting to give way; however, the substructure of the bridge is so corroded that the bridge will collapse within the next few years, even if no traffic is upon the bridge. It would be very unresponsible of MoDOT to allow people to use this bridge with the possibility of a collapse.
At this point, there really would be no minor renovations to this bridge to be able to make it safe — it would require a complete rebuild (and it would be cheaper, in the long run, to simply replace the bridge). There are alternate methods to get into the park that are currently available — the Williams Road entrance to the park has been opened so that people can get access to the public use area. The major impact, of course, is that the park’s welcome center is now separate from the park — you would have to drive to get from the welcome center to the park, and vice versa). Since it would cost a significant amount of money to rebuild (or renovate) the bridge (in the $10 million to $20 million range as a conservative estimate), since the daily use of the bridge is low (about 400 cars/day), and since there is a viable, and effective, method to travel between the welcome center and the park, we have determined that the best use of taxpayer dollars under MoDOT’s control is to document the bridge for historic preservation and then remove it.
This e-mail clarifies several things, and shows that MoDOT is in a tight spot. Money is scarce at all governmental agencies because of the severe recession, and it’s difficult to justify rebuilding a bridge that averaged barely 16 vehicles per hour when there are much more pressing highway needs in Missouri.
The state tried to repair the bridge a few years ago, but the fixes obviously didn’t take. The Meramec River, which is spanned by the bridge, is notoriously violent after heavy rains, and probably hastened the bridge’s deterioration.
And even if the bridge were rebuilt, such an effort very likely would remove all traces of the elements that made it historic.
Barring an unlikely intervention by Trailnet, it’s hard to see what other choice the state of Missouri has but to raze the bridge. I’m as supportive of historic preservation as anyone. But there comes a time in which common sense and pragmatism have to prevail. Regrettably, I suspect this is one of those times.