ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Interstate drivers should expect to be down to two lanes between River Des Peres and Loughborough until next year.
Back in November 2023, MoDOT announced that completion of replacing the bridges along Interstate 55 in South City and South County, more specifically, the I-55 bridge between River Des Peres and Loughborough, wouldn't be completed until 2025 due to damage of girders by the contractor.
KCI Construction, the contractor working on the project, damaged girders supporting a bridge over a rail line north of Germania during the demolition of the road surface in October 2023. MoDOT says the damage was unexpected at the time.
MoDOT says that replacement girders would take more than six months to design, fabricate and deliver. Now those replacement girders have been designed.
"We do have a design for those girders that need to be replaced," said MoDOT Area Engineer Jen Wade. "In May, we'll be taking down those damaged girders that will replaced, so you will see a little of movement there which will be great."
However, despite the completion of the designs, Wade says the girders won't be ready until later this year in the fall, pushing the completion of that bridge back to 2025.
"We do have the new girders on order, which means we expect to see it in the fall, that is longer than we have hoped, but it is not strange for what you expect to order large numbers like that," said Wade.
Wade says the girders aren't generic enough to be sitting on a shelf some place. They all have to specially made for the bridge.
The girders that were damaged by the contractors was a much more thinner girder compared to newer standards.
"It takes a lot of time in line in the factory to be made and get sent here," said Wade.