New Canal Bridge

I'm aware of the insane traffic on 270, Drive it everyday, ugh! What few times I've been in the vicinity of that bridge it doesn't seem as congested as my neck of the woods ( 44 and 270). Then again I've never been up there during full -on 5:30- 6:30 rush hour :-O

That's a bummer Illinois is going the way of Missouri, replacing beautiful bridges with boring ones. What's the point? modot just demolished the delmar bridge over I-170. Not a major loss being a UCEB but I don't think it was even 40 yrs old! This issue is unfortunately yet another example of our modern throwaway society.. wether you're talking about tv's clothes, cars, or bridges etc... The perception that it's cheaper to replace something than repair it or build it to last in the first place :-(

I'm off of my soapbox now...

IDiOT historically has a poor track record when it comes to truss bridges (lost count on the number they replaced with boring slabs in the past decade), and oddly enough their boring slabs actually don't do any better too. The canal bridge doesn't have any shoulders (nor does the river bridge), see a lot of heavy truck traffic (to the point that all superloads are forced to use the JB Bridge due to the weight limits), and any incident on the bridge can cause major issues.

The only reason why that section of 270 isn't at 6 lanes of traffic is the canal and river bridges.

Maybe Blago set the money up.

Either way, IDOT has a vision for the Illinois River and that vision is a river with no historic bridges and completely populated by slabs of concrete.

I-270 is a major route around St. Louis. Many of the interstates built with two lanes in the '60s have been widened to three or more in the last 10-20 years. I'm not surprised that there's enough traffic here to merit a wider bridge.

I prefer the look of trusses over the slabs, so it would be nice to see them replace these with wider trusses but building a truss is an artistic choice rather than an economic one.

Is there really that much traffic in the vicinity of chain of rocks to need SIX lanes? I thought illinois was on the verge of being BK? Where are they getting the $$$?

So in Illinois bridges last < 50 years eh? Something definitely sucks about this.

And cable stayed bridges according to a colleague are concrete slabs with piano wire attached.

where is the barf bag when I need it? IDiOT has a poor track record when it comes to truss bridges and their ugly eyesores don't really fare any better.

This one is now officially doomed. It is in IDOT letting next month. They will be open while the new bridges are constructed but will be removed after that.

IDOT held a public meeting regarding the replacement of these bridges on 12/2/2009. A new, dull bridge is proposed to the north of the existing bridges. An alternate, asymmetrical cable-stay bridge with a 1500' was too expensive.