Can the existing Mississippi River bridge be widened?
While it is probably physically possible to widen the bridges, it just isnt very practical to do so. The additional load that the structure would need to carry (both structure and vehicles) would necessitate strengthening or replacing the complete deck structure, replacing the main suspension cables or augmenting the existing ones with companion cables, strengthening the towers and foundations and rebuilding / enlarging the cable anchorages. If each bridge is put out of service while work on the individual structure is performed, I-74 would be reduced to one lane in each direction, augmenting the traffic problems. For both bridges to remain in service during peak hours, the construction schedule would be extended significantly. The cost of such a conversion would likely be in the same range as that of building a new bridge, and while the resulting bridge would be structurally adequate, the resulting bridges would be compromised in terms of appearance, functionality and future maintaina
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