Bend Road Bridge

I drove past today... and the new bridge is open and the old one is - gone.

This is a location that really did need a wider bridge suitable for heavier loads - but it is so sad to see the old one just destroyed. Missouri sure seems to be intent on eliminating all historic bridges.

Tony, there was plenty more with this project to get worked up about than just the FHWA. Suffice it to say, I was... how to say it politely... less than satisfied with the conduct of Section 106 for this project.

So, a trail group wanted to take ownership and preserve this century old beauty for posterity and the FHWA said no?!!

...My thoughts on this

Photo courtesy of Todd Baslee

Demolition to be let out for bids.

http://www.emissourian.com/local_news/county/county-acceptin...

Oh feces!

:^)

An alternate could be: Oh scat! ;^) :^)

Sorry, couldn't resist...

Happy Holidays,

Art S.

One of the nice things about this website is that I can show it to my kids...are the lame cuss words really necessary?

Discussions failed, bridge now doomed:

http://www.emissourian.com/local_news/county/last-hurdle-cle...

Discussions to preserve the bridge continue:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/in-paci...

The Historic Bridge Foundation is featuring this bridge on the Foundation's Facebook page as a Focus Bridge. The timing of this coincides with the recent inclusion of this bridge in Missouri's Historic Places in Peril list. The bridge was nominated to this list by James Baughn, webmaster of this website.

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.865562906860206.10...

Update:

http://www.emissourian.com/local_news/county/official-old-br...

Just another example of county commissioners with big heads and more power than they deserve...

"It's our bridge" they said... No gentlemen, it's the taxpayers bridge and the last time I checked you still work for them!

These guys need to be replaced with people who understand that philosophy...

Standard battle of officials against locals; good luck to the local preservationists!:

http://www.emissourian.com/local_news/county/fate-of-bend-br...

Doomed:

http://www.emissourian.com/local_news/county/tip-includes-ci...

Sometime in the 90's when gas was cheap and i had my first car, I was tooling around and came upon this gem from the flood plain side. When I got to the 90 degree turn at the other end i had to sit and marvel at it for a moment. It reminded me of the Red Iron Bridge over the Black River in Lesterville, another lost bridge of similar spec. i am really broken up over this. Truss bridges falling, all around.

Bend Bridge has 90 tons of asphalt on the deck , I imagine you could saddle the trusses with large steel plates to strengthen the trusses and remove the asphalt to lighten the load that the bridge has to hold so that the road can stay open until the new bridge is finished , currently it's a 20 min drive to go around, and several business are located right across the bridge. It is a headache to have to drive the long way around multiple times a day!!! I think city and county need to get there heads out of there asses to get the bridge operational !!! I typically use the bridge 10 or more times a day and I have had enough !!! I have heard the county and city are fighting over money and lawsuits An that is part of the problem !!! I also was told they closed this bridge to force the hand of the state to give them emergency funding to build a new bridge because they go to the top of the list on getting grant money to build a new one by closing the existing bridge

Stupid.

The bridge is in good shape. The only problem I saw with it is the difficulty in seeing if there was oncoming traffic and not much room to pull off to let traffic by. A few dozen truckloads of fill and it would be very serviceable.

The listing says Sect. 106 applies. Anyone know if it was satisfied? Or do we get to scream "Foul!"?

The bridge was closed down for good Friday Nov 15th at about 10 am. No preemptive signs were up causing a huge traffic jam and the several signs that are up now are small. There is no plan even in the preliminary route choosing phase at the moment as complete realignment is being considered by the county coming off of Old Gray Summit road deverting traffic form the town of Pacific and into Gray Summit.

The county wants to demolish this historic bridge: http://emissourian.com/news/top_stories/article_8e126f8b-344...