New Route 53 bridge replaces one built in 1922

One of my favorite movies is “Hoosiers,” starring Gene Hackman as basketball coach Norman Dale. It is a story of a small Indiana town named Hickory that is 100% invested in the success of their basketball team. During one of the classroom scenes, we see the character named Ollie, and he is reading aloud his report on Progress.

His report goes like this: “Progress. Progress is electricity, school consolidation, church remodeling, second farm tractors, second farm cars, hay balers, corn pickers, grain combines, field choppers, and indoor plumbing.”

Wyman

For a young student in rural Indiana, in the year 1952, all of these items were viewed as significant progress over what was the norm. Interestingly enough, three decades before the setting of this movie, in the year 1922, a bridge was built across the St. Francis River between Butler and Dunklin counties on Route 53. The bridge was 655 feet long and 26 feet wide.

In 1922, this bridge was probably a very large investment for the transportation system and was considered a tremendous improvement over any previous mode of getting across the St. Francis.

However, things change, and in 1941, the Wappapello Dam was constructed upstream of this bridge and changed the hydraulics of the St. Francis River significantly. Still, this bridge has served the traveling public for about 97 years.

Hopefully, if the weather remains favorable, MoDOT will be able to open both lanes of traffic on the new bridge across the St. Francis River by the end of this week.

For MoDOT, this shows significant progress because we will have replaced a poor condition bridge with a new structure. For area farmers, it will be significant progress because of the challenges that the old bridge presented when moving large equipment.

In addition to replacing the St. Francis Main Channel structure, the new bridge will also allow the removal of the St. Francis Overflow Channel bridge. Furthermore, this project includes the replacement of the bridge close to the intersection of Route J and Route 53. So the project will essentially replace three outdated structures with two new structures.

Currently in the state of Missouri, we have 922 poor condition bridges, 1,194 weight restricted bridges, and 450 bridges that are both rated poor and weight restricted.

The Southeast District has about 60 individual bridge replacements identified within our Statewide Transportation Improvement Plan, or STIP. This list is always available online at www.modot.org; and it contains specific information about each project, the year it is expected to be let out for bidding, and even a general cost estimate.

Although the replacement of 60 bridges will improve the list of bridges currently rated as “poor,” one of the concerns that we have is the number of bridges that are currently rated as “fair.”

These bridges are still in decent shape, but each year, Mother Nature tries her best to worsen the condition of these structures. The current rate that we replace poor bridges mirrors very closely the rate at which some of these “fair” condition bridges are downgraded to “poor” condition. Basically, for the past several years we have been treading water. Not really going backwards, but certainly not making much progress either.

If anyone has any questions regarding any transportation related issue, please feel free to call 1-888-ASK-MODOT and ask to speak to me. You may also email me anytime at David.Wyman@modot.mo.gov .

---

David Wyman is the Southeast District Area engineer for the Missouri Department of Transportation.