U.S. 82 bridge links state to Mississippi

$341 million structure to open this week

— The dedication of the new U.S. 82 bridge over the Mississippi River just south of this Chicot County seat provided an opportunity for several hundred Arkansas and Mississippi residents to venture for the first time Monday onto the deck of the $341 million structure, nearly 10 years in the making.

The throng included Victoria Crenshaw, 65, of Eudora, who, like many on both sides of the river, saw the bridgeslowly take shape since construction began in December 2001.

“I love it,” Crenshaw said as she walked back down to the Arkansas side of the river. “It’s about time.”

Crenshaw said she attended the dedication to honor her father, Grover Jones, who attended the 1940 dedication of the old bridge just 3,000 feet upriver.

Then she glanced over at the two-lane steel truss bridge. “That looks shaky.”

The new bridge, Crenshaw pronounced, is “the greatestthing that’s happened for this area.”

But she and others will have to wait a few more days before they can regularly use the bridge. The latest word is it may open to traffic by the end of the week, said Randy Ort, a spokesman for the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department. Completion of the tie-in to U.S. 82 on the Mississippi side of the bridge still remains, he said.

But it didn’t stop state and local dignitaries from lining up to extol the new bridgeand what it means to the region.

“This is an exciting day for the state of Arkansas,” Lake Village Mayor JoAnne Bush said. “It is truly history in the making. I’m so thankful to the people who forged the vision many years ago. Their vision is now a reality.”

Former U.S. Sen. Trent Lott, R-Miss., called the bridge “one of the most beautiful sights in all of America” and Larry L. “Butch” Brown, the head of the Mississippi Department of Transportation, said it was at once “an imposing structure yet inviting.”

“This is a monumental engineering achievement,” added U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss. “This is a monumental political achievement. And it’s a monument to the teamwork” involving Mississippi and Arkansas.

Lott, Wicker and others defended the $100 million congressional earmark that jump-started the work on the bridge.

“If you don’t like earmarks, don’t cross the bridge,” quipped Dick Hall, a Mississippi transportation commissioner.

The striking appearance of the cable-stayed bridge, Hall and others said, adds a singular look to the region. It features two 425-foot towers anchoring four fans of steel cable that support the bridge superstructure. The main span is 1,378 feet long, making it the longest cable-stayed bridge on the Mississippi River and the fourth-longest cable-stayed span in North America, according to HNTB, the Kansas City, Mo., infrastructure design and construction firm.

“There’s no doubt that this new bridge is a crown jewel connecting Arkansas and Mississippi,” said Madison Murphy of El Dorado, one of at least 10 current or former members of the Arkansas Highway Commission on hand for the dedication.

But its singular look is more a function of economics than art, according to the engineer who designed it, Steven Hague, an associate vice president at HNTB.

His team began the design in 1995, quickly focusing on the cable-stayed design to accommodate the requirements of the U.S. Coast Guard, which wanted more space between the piers to allow barge traffic to easily move under a new bridge. Because of its location and the narrow gaps between its piers, the old Benjamin G.Humphreys bridge has had more barges hit it than any other bridge on the Mississippi since 1972, according to HNTB.

For the 378 feet between spans the Coast Guard required, “the most cost-effective and the most easily maintained [design] is the cablestayed bridge,” Hague said. “It worked out basically as an economic design.”

The design process took three years. The work took Hague to Vicksburg, Miss., for tests involving the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, taking samples from the bottom of the Mississippi River to test the soil, and to Canada for wind-tunnel tests.

“There was a lot of things that went to our analysis and the design of the bridge,” Hague said.

The design was “put on the shelf” in 1998 until funding for the project became available, he said.

That happened in 2000. In July 2001, the first contract - $110.8 million - was awarded for the main span totaling 2,569 feet. It was completed in September 2006.

The $86 million contract for the Mississippi approach to the bridge was awarded in March 2005. It included 2,890 feet of roadway and 6,537 feet of bridge.

A $66 million contract for the Arkansas approach - 3,224 feet of roadway and 4,656 feet of bridge - was awarded in December 2005.

The final contract totaling $22.4 million was awarded in November 2009. It covered the bridge surfacing, tie-ins to existing U.S. 82, signing, striping and removal of the old bridge, which is scheduled for late 2012.

Hague made several trips to the site to help oversee the work and “so we can make it better the next time.” The bridge is at least the seventh the 50-year-old engineer has been involved with on the Mississippi River.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he said. “It’s what I like to do.”

The bridge is more than double the width of the old bridge, allowing farm equipment and other oversized vehicles to navigate the bridge without closing it down for travelers going in the opposite direction and is projected to handle 16,000 vehicles a day by 2021 compared with 7,500 vehicles that use the old bridge today.

Mississippi highway officials oversaw construction of the bridge under an agreement with Arkansas highway officials, who will be responsible for its maintenance. Both states split the cost equally between their federal money and state matching money. The construction cost $285million. The balance involved the cost of design and acquiring rights of way.

The total cost ranks the project among the most expensive public works projects in Arkansas history. The Mc-Clellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, which involves 440 miles from Tulsa to the Mississippi River, cost $1.3 billion when it was completed in 1984, according to the Tulsa Port website. In 2009 dollars, the project would cost nearly $2.7 billion.

The Interstate 440 bridge and approaches, which cover 10 miles, cost $155 million by the time it was completed in 1982. In 2009 dollars, the project would cost $345 million, using the consumer price index, according to measuringworth.com.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 07/27/2010

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