The following is a brief of the story. For the full version, see the Wednesday, Aug. 19 print edition of the BDN.
The construction of a new bridge over the Osage River in eastern Missouri wouldn’t guarantee that Boonville’s MKT Railroad bridge remains intact, a Missouri Department of Transportation official said this morning.
MoDOT is seeking roughly $28 million for the Osage bridge and roughly $5 million for a nearby crossover, said Rod Massman, MoDOT’s administrator of railroads. Money for such a project would come from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
“I’m pretty hopeful,” Massman said of the Osage River project. “I think we put together a pretty comprehensive application.”
Initially, Massman said, the plan had been to dismantle the MKT bridge and use parts of it for the Osage River project. But uncertainty about the logistics and time requirements for such a project led officials to instead pursue the construction of an entirely new structure, he said.
