Crews have started getting ready for a three-year project on the Interstate-280 bridge. This year, the Illinois Department of Transportation says the Iowa-bound lanes will be closed to replace the concrete bridge deck. Michelle O'Neill reports.
Field Engineer, Ryan Hippen from the Illinois Department of Transportation, says this will be the first major rehabilitation project for the 51-year-old bridge over the Mississippi River between Davenport and Rock Island. And preliminary work began this week. That's mainly temporary lane closures for installing netting, completing patching, and setting up for head-to-head traffic.
Hippen expects the Iowa-bound lanes to be closed sometime in March, when one lane of traffic in each direction will be moved to the Illinois-bound lanes.
The deck replacement project is scheduled to coordinate with the opening of four lanes on the new, I-74 bridge between Bettendorf and Moline. Hippen says Average Daily Traffic, or ADT, on the I-280 bridge was 20,000 to 21,000 before the I-74 project began. In 2019, that number increased to 28,000.
Kraemer North America is the general contractor for the $50 million I-280 bridge project, with local companies, such as Valley Construction, serving as subcontractors.