As much of the country is aware, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River collapsed during the peak traffic hours of August 1, 2007 near downtown Minneapolis. Without any notice, the 1964-built bridge deck plummeted into the waters of the Mississippi 64 feet below, sending drivers and their vehicles into the river in an instant. It remains unclear as to what was the exact cause of the bridge failure, but crews were working on the span at the time involved in an overlay project of Interstate 35W. Bridge inspectionshttp://dot.state.mn.us/i35wbridge/history.html were completed annually since 1993 and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) officials are still investigating the potential causes of the bridge failure.
I traveled across the Interstate 35W bridge northbound on April 23, 2007 and thought nothing of it. The superstructure of the bridge was hidden from view as I drove across what seemed to be an ordinary bridge…
A $15-million contract to remove the bridge debris was awarded to Carl Bolander & Sons Co. on August 8, 2007. Crews will use three cranes to lift the bridge deck segments which will be moved to a staging area for analysis by NTSB officials.
View looking westward from the Interstate 35W Mississippi River bridge. In the distance are the spans for the Central Avenue (Minnesota 65 / former U.S. 65) and Hennepin Avenue.
Commuters are advised to use Interstate 94 and Minnesota 280 to circumvent the bridge area of Interstate 35W. MnDOT blocked Minnesota 280’s intersections with County Road B, Broadway Street N.E., Walnut Street, and Roselawn Avenue in an effort to temporarily upgrade all of Minnesota 280 into a full freeway (Minnesota 280 existed previously as a freeway halfway between Interstate 94 and 35W). Interstate 35W is otherwise open for local traffic interests between Interstate 94 north to 3rd Street and Minnesota 280 south to 4th Street and University Avenue. See MnDOT’s detour map http://www.dot.state.mn.us/i35wbridge/images/I-35W_Detour_Map.gif for more of an explanation.
Nearing the north end of the Interstate 35W Mississippi River Bridge on April 23, 2007.
MnDOT announced that it prefers to replace the collapsed bridge with a ten-lane wide span with pedestrian access. An emergency design-build contract http://www.dot.state.mn.us/designbuild/35wbrproject.html will be issued as soon as possible for the bridge replacement.
Sources:
- “I-35W bridge collapses over Mississippi River; 7 dead.” San Jose Mercury News, August 1, 2007.
- “Bolander cranes readied to remove bridge debris,” Minneapolis Star Tribune, August 7, 2007.
- Interstate 35W Bridge in Minneapolis
http://www.dot.state.mn.us/i35wbridge/index.html, MN, MnDOT - “MnDOT wants new I-35W bridge to be 10 lanes, pedestrian-accessible,” Pioneer Press, August 7, 2007
Great blog on the bridge collapse. Always enjoy reading your blogs. :)
BTW, the wife and I are traveling to Florida this weekend to see the Keys and her folks in Lakeland. This will be my first drive over the Overseas Highway. I also hope to “clinch” both I-75 and I-95 and add some more I-4 mileage during our week-long stay. Oh yeah, several more Florida counties to “clinch”. :)
I-94 is also going to be temporarily widened to 8 lanes in each direction between I-35W and MN 280 to handle the influx of traffic. This will be done using shoulders and lane restriping with minimal pavement addition built to the standards of construction bypass lanes. This weekend (August 11-12) the interchange between 94 and 280 is shut down so crews can add a lane to the ramps.
On another note, Central Ave is still MN 65. MN 65 was only truncated between the end of the freeway spur off I-35W (marked “Downtown Exits”) and Washington Avenue, and everywhere north of there is MN 65. So technically the freeway is still MN 65, oddly.