The Missouri and Illinois Departments of Transportation held a groundbreaking ceremony to commemorate the start of construction for the Chester Bridge on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River on Halloween.
Since then there has been much work getting the bridge built in a timely manner. MoDOT Project Director Brian Okenfuss said that progress has been made.
“We completed driving piles for the towers on the Missouri side,” Okenfuss said. “We have poured three drill shafts in the middle of the river for the center pier that will sit in the middle of the river. We are about one-third of the way finished with the dirt for the embankment between the Horse Island Chute Bridge and the Chester Bridge.”
Okenfuss said that crews are currently monitoring low water levels on the Mississippi River, which could cause problems down the road if it gets much worse.
“It’s something we are watching closely,” Okenfuss said. “If it gets much lower we will have to do some more dredging to keep things moving, but for right now we have been able to work around it and stay on schedule.”
Okenfuss said that when you’re working with rivers, “you’re at Mother Nature’s mercy.”
“The bigger concern is always high water, because there’s not much we can do to mitigate that. The low water can be a challenge and it has been a problem state-wide with other bridge projects.”
The bridge will also be wider with two 12-foot lanes and a pair of 10-foot shoulders.
Construction for the Chester Bridge was started at the end of August, with little limitations for traffic for those who use the bridge on a daily basis.
“We haven’t had too many surprises,” Okenfuss said. “We had done some exploratory drilling before stating the project. For the most part everything is consistent to what we expected.
The future for the construction is building the bridge upward in the next couple of months.
“Particular to the center pier in the middle of the river, we have five more shafts to complete and then once those are done we will start with the footing and building the tower up from there,” Okenfuss said. “It’s pretty similar on the Missouri tower, we have the foundations in we are going to start on the footings and towers now.That’s what construction looks like for the next couple of months.”
The Chester Bridge currently has two 11-foot lanes and carries 7,000 vehicles per day with approximately 25 percent being commercial motor vehicle traffic. It connects the cities of Chester and Perryville across the Mississippi River via Highway 51.
In March 2023, the Ames Team—comprised of Ames Construction Inc. and Parsons Transportation Group—was selected to design and build the Don Welge Memorial Bridge. The new bridge will cost approximately $284 million to complete.
The current truss bridge was originally constructed in 1942 and was re-constructed in 1944 after a severe storm destroyed the main span. The bridge has allowed motorists to travel both east and west across the Mississippi River for 80 years.
This truss bridge has 14 spans for a total length of 2,827 feet. There are two main spans of 670 feet each. The bridge accommodates two lanes of traffic and is 22 feet wide with a vertical clearance of 19 feet 6 inches.
Over the course of eight decades, the Chester Bridge has become less functional for modern vehicles. Although the bridge is safe for travel, this aging structure is considered to be in poor condition. MoDOT is continuing to monitor the bridge. The last inspection occurred in the fall 2021.
The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission approved an amendment to the FY2022-2026 Statewide Transportation Improvement Program to fund the Chester Bridge Replacement Project (J9P3857) during its meeting on Sept. 9, 2021. The estimated cost of the replacement project is $189 million. The Illinois Department of Transportation committed $63 million toward the cost of a bridge replacement in its FY2022-2027 Rebuild Illinois Highway Improvement Program.
The Chester Bridge replacement is on pace to be completed in Dec. 2026.
