UNDER CONSTRUCTION: CREWS WORK ON MISSISSIPPI RIVER BRIDGE

Crews could spend eight weeks making repairs to keep the 72-year-old Mississippi River Bridge at Cape Girardeau open until its replacement can open in three years.

Bridge repair crews from Jefferson City will mobilize on Monday. Bridge traffic will be reduced to one lane beginning Tuesday from about 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. and continue that way every Tuesday through Thursday until the work is done, Missouri Department of Transportation officials said.

Traffic delays of 15 minutes can be expected, they said. The work depends on weather conditions.

State highway engineers inspected the bridge Wednesday. A bridge repair crew spray painted question marks on the bridge Thursday to show joints that need repairs.

Jim Carney, bridge maintenance engineer, said the concrete and steel grid of the bridge deck has deteriorated in places. Bridge crews plan to install steel plates and cover them with asphalt to provide a smooth driving surface, Carney said.

Similar repairs were done on sections of the bridge in December, he said.

Carney said the repairs are needed, particularly since there will be a lot of concrete trucks crossing the bridge over the next few years in connection with construction of the new Bill Emerson Memorial Bridge.

Concrete will be brought to the Illinois side and then taken by barge out into the river for pier construction. That way, the construction work won't interfere with barge traffic on the river, officials said. The navigation channel is on the Missouri side of the river.

The construction work will add to the truck traffic on the old bridge, Carney said.

Carney said it is better to make the repairs now than in the winter.

"You have better results in this kind of weather," he said.

Said Carney, "We learned last year that we needed to start earlier."

Scott Meyer, MoDOT District 10 engineer in Sikeston, said the department is keeping a good eye on the bridge.

MoDOT looked at replacing some joints last year, but didn't want the expense of hiring a contractor and paying millions of dollars, Meyer said. So MoDOT used its own bridge crews to make some repairs.

MoDOT doesn't want to spend a lot of money keeping up the old bridge, which is slated to be replaced by the new bridge under construction by 2003.

If the state were planning to keep the old bridge in use, the entire bridge deck would have to be replaced, Meyer said, but such improvements aren't warranted on the old bridge since it is slated for demolition.

"We are concerned about the taxpayers' pocketbook," he said.

Meyer said the Mississippi River Bridge is in no worse shape than other bridges across the state and is structurally sound.

Carney said the two-lane bridge has held up well over the years. "I would say it has done a really good job," he said.

Staff writer Laura Johnston contributed information for this story.