The grim state of the Route 66 Bridge

A representative from the Missouri Department of Transportation attended the Route 66 Association of Missouri’s meeting this weekend and painted a grim picture of the state of the Route 66 Bridge near Eureka, Mo., adjacent to  Route 66 State Park.

The state recently closed the bridge to the public and has proposed demolishing the dilapidated structure, for safety reasons. Preservationists hope that a third party could take over maintenance of the bridge and perhaps convert it into at least a pedestrian span.

Longtime St. Louis-area roadie and author Joe Sonderman attended the meeting and had this to say in an e-mail:

It appears a conscious decision was made several years earlier that may make it impossible to save the historic bridge. Karen Yeomans, P.E., area engineer for West St. Louis County, said that MoDOT has been working for the past six years to identify a funding source to repair the bridge. The agency encouraged listing on the National Register of Historic Places to increase opportunities for federal funding, looked into the possibility of Scenic Byway funds and twice offered to turn maintenance of the bridge over to the Department of Natural Resources and State Parks.

However, a decision was made in 2007 to not spend limited MoDOT resources on maintaining a bridge that does not link communities. That decision was made without consulting the public. Since then, the bridge has deteriorated rapidly. Yeomans pointed out that MoDOT is responsible for over 10,000 bridges, many of which are in substandard condition, while the state budget woes continue.

Efforts were made to extend the life of the bridge. The weight limit was decreased to 15 tons in 2005, ten tons in 2007, and five tons in the fall of 2009. It was restricted to one lane to keep loads in the middle of the span in 2007, and some repair work was done in 2006.

Harms detailed the problems with the bridge, including photos that showed entire sections of structural members eaten away by rust, buckled beams, deteriorating concrete and unsafe railings. He said not only could the bridge not be repaired at a reasonable cost, it can no longer even be inspected practically. According to Harms, the bridge can no longer support the weight of the “snooper” bucket trucks MoDOT uses to perform inspections. Summing up, Harms said to save the bridge, crews “would almost have to take it apart and put it back together.” He also added that left as is, the bridge could collapse under its own weight in two or three years, making it unsafe even for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

And here are some photos of the bridge’s corrosion that were presented at the meeting:

As you can see, the photos paint a grim picture of the bridge’s condition.

However, if the bridge has to be removed, Sonderman said MoDOT historian Jane Lee is holding her employer’s feet to the fire, making sure the agency is following all the rules to do so. That includes consultation and public meetings with all interested parties, including the state Route 66 association. Lee and Yeomans suggested contacting the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, the Missouri Historic Preservation Office and MoDOT to voice concerns about the proposed demolition of the bridge.

I suspect MoDOT took the bridge off the maintenance list in 2007 for pragmatic reasons. The current recession began in late 2007, and signs were abundant well before then that the economy was faltering. Therefore, it would have seemed sensible, at first glance, to not dedicate dwindling repair funds to a bridge that was seeing fewer than 500 vehicles a day.

However, I’ll bet a number of folks at the Department of Natural Resources are not on speaking terms with MoDOT. The decision to not maintain the bridge ultimately has hurt Route 66 State Park. The lack of a bridge has left the park’s main office on a dead-end road. To access the rest of the park, one has to take a convoluted route on Interstate 44 and frontage roads. Had there been public oversight on the decision to defer the Route 66 Bridge’s maintenance, the DNR undoubtedly would have protested the decision. Instead, this was a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul within Missouri’s state government.