A rehabilitation project on the I-55 Meramec River Bridge was scheduled to begin Tuesday, after the Leader deadline, the Missouri Department of Transportation announced last week.
MoDOT officials said there will be nightly lane closures between 7 p.m. and 5 a.m. on northbound and southbound lanes as crews restripe and install barrier walls before traffic shifts between Hwy. 141 and Meramec Bottom Road. A minimum of four lanes will remain open in each direction, but the lanes will narrow to 11 feet.
The work is expected to be completed by spring 2028, MoDOT reported.
Kozeny Wagner Construction will be paid $16.5 million to perform routine maintenance and repair work, as well as resurfacing and repairing deteriorated sections of the decks on the twin bridges over the Meramec River that connect Jefferson and St. Louis counties. One bridge is on northbound I-55, and the other bridge is on southbound I-55.
Jordan Dalaviras, MoDOT area liaison for Jefferson and Franklin counties, previously said Kozeny Wagner submitted the lowest of four bids for the project, which was projected to cost $17.8 million.
Dalaviras said along with the maintenance and repair work, Kozeny Wagner will touch up the bridges’ joints, work on the bridges’ substructures and address erosion issues on the north side of the bridges in south St. Louis County.
The work will be completed in four phases, and MoDOT intends to keep as many lanes as possible open on both bridges during the project. The southbound bridge has five lanes and the northbound bridge has six lanes.
As work is done on the Meramec River bridges, MoDOT will close the northbound Hwy. 141 left-turn lane that leads to the on-ramp, and southbound Hwy. 141 drivers will need to yield before entering the on-ramp in Arnold, according to the website.
During the first phase, crews will work on the west section of the southbound bridge, and two southbound lanes will be closed and instead divert onto the northbound bridge, leaving three open lanes on the southbound bridge. That will leave four northbound lanes open.
For phase two, crews will work on the three southbound lanes that were open during phase one. That will shift southbound traffic to the two completed lanes on the west side of the southbound bridge, and drivers will continue to use those two lanes to travel south on the northbound bridge with the other four lanes remaining open for northbound traffic.
Phase three will shift the work to the northbound bridge, with work starting on the three lanes on the east side of the bridge. Three of the northbound lanes will remain open on that bridge, and two lanes will be closed and instead diverted onto the southbound bridge. Four lanes will be open on the southbound bridge.
During the final phase, three lanes on the west side of the northbound bridge will be closed, and drivers may use the three lanes completed during phase three to travel north as well as two northbound lanes on the southbound bridge, which will have four lanes open for those traveling south.
For information about the I-55 Meramec River bridges project, go to the project page at modot.org.