3rd Memphis bridge seen as needed soon
Posted on Saturday, November 17, 2007
Increased traffic counts over the two Mississippi River bridges in West Memphis and the resulting longer delays for motorists traversing the two spans have local officials studying the possibility of constructing a third interstate bridge.
It’s not the first time people have discussed building another river bridge. They’ve been bandying that idea about for nearly 30 years, just after the Hernando DeSoto bridge opened on Interstate 40 in 1972.
But it may be the first time that the necessary parties are all on the same page, said Eddie Brawley, director of the West Memphis Planning Organization.
“The bridge is needed,” he said. “It’s needed now. We should have been building it already.”
Tentative plans call for installing a bridge at the southern edge of West Memphis, through the city’s industrial park and the river port. The bridge would cross the Mississippi River there and reconnect with Interstate 55 south of President’s Island near downtown Memphis.
Another idea is to build a bridge just north of Marion. The bridge would merge with the northern loop of Interstate 40 in northwest Memphis.
The Tennessee Department of Transportation conducted a study several years ago and recommended crossing the Mississippi River in south Arkansas as part of the Interstate 69 proposal. Interstate 69 is a proposed traffic corridor running from Evansville, Ill., to Houston.
Officials with the Arkansas Highway and Transportation Department said a new Mississippi River bridge will cost between $ 450 million and $ 710 million, and it would take five to 10 years to build. The two proposed sites have not undergone the necessary studies to determine if construction would affect the environment or if the land’s geographical structures would support the bridges, Brawley said.
There are two interstate traffic bridges that connect West Memphis with Tennessee. The I-40 bridge, the Hernando Desoto, is the longest at 19, 535 feet long. It opened in August 1972.
The Memphis-Arkansas Bridge on Interstate 55 opened in 1949.
A train bridge just north of the Interstate 55 bridge opened in 1855. Before either traffic bridge opened, train employees often put vehicles on the trains’ flatbed cars and hauled them over the river on the train tracks.
The only other bridges that cross the Mississippi River in the area are in Caruthersville, Mo., and in Helena, about 40 miles downstream from Memphis.
The Highway Department counts indicate that 54, 420 vehicles traveled across the I-40 bridge daily last year. An additional 49, 800 crossed the I-55 span each day in 2006. Those numbers reflect a 10 percent increase in traffic flow over the past 10 years.
“Everybody comes through here,” said Holmes Hammett, director of the West Memphis Chamber of Commerce. “We can’t sustain this much growth. There’s way too much traffic here now.”
This time, Brawley said, representatives from various organizations all realize the need for a new bridge, and that’s why the chances of building one are more likely.
“Our roads are always backed up,” he said. “If we don’t do something soon, I think one of those bridges will have to undergo major repairs and be closed for a long time.
“ We need to come up with some relief for those bridges,” he said.
He said the Memphis Area Chamber of Commerce also is backing a bridge proposal and has about $ 2 million appropriated for studies and continued research. A call to Dexter Miller, the chamber’s director, was not returned Friday afternoon.
“We’ve got Arkansas, Tennessee and Memphis interested,” Brawley said. “It’s not just a local issue. It’s a huge priority regionally.”
A new bridge would alleviate much of the truck transport traffic that rolls through West Memphis, said Ward Wimbish, director of economic development for the city of West Memphis. The 1. 5-mile stretch of roadway in the midst of the Crittenden County city doubles as Interstate 44 and 55 and is the third most congested area in the country, highway records indicate.
“If anything happens, it shuts down the interstate, and we’ve got traffic backed up for miles,” he said. “We need help in alleviating all that.
“ It’s a problem, but it’s a good problem to have — having too many people in the area,” Wimbish said.
A new bridge also would be used to attract new industry, especially if the span is in the city’s industrial park, he said.
“A lot of this is truck traffic,” he said of the number of vehicles that cross the bridges daily. “We have the largest truck stop in the country. If we could have another bridge, mainly for trucks, it would really help this area.”
Talks will continue, said Brawley, who is optimistic that a bridge will be built.
“If they started today, it’d take 10 years, but at least we are seriously looking at doing it this time,” he said.
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