Jefferson Ave Bridge reopening

It’s still hard for me to believe that it has taken more time to rebuild this bridge that it has to finish Phase 1 of the Highway 40 (I-64) project, but the Jefferson Bridge is almost finished. The Post Dispatch is reporting that two lanes of the bridge will be opened on December 15th with the rest to follow so thereafter.

Located just south of Highway 40, the bridge closed in October of 2007 and has been under rapid construction since. The bridge spans the entire Chouteau viaduct, which crosses over a significant number of railroad tracks including those for Metrolink. Working around those tracks to not interfere with service along them has been one the more significant holdups along the way.

The bridge will be reopening none to soon. With Phase 2 of the Highway 40 project also set to begin on December 15th, for a while it was looking like commuters would have to continue to function without this crucial corridor despite the closure of 40 from I-170 to Kingshighway. The first few weeks of this process are going to be a mess, as I have been mentioning a lot over the past few weeks, but this should lessen the blow.

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