Interstate 55 Bridge Rehabilitation in St. Louis and St. Louis City

What will the impacts be?

Generally speaking, traffic lanes will be reduced and shifted in each direction.  For the first year crews  will start on the north end of the project, with northbound traffic moved to the southbound lanes  between Pestalozzi and Potomac with two lanes of traffic in each direction.  When the northbound traffic is shifted, the northbound exit ramps at 3200 Broadway (Exit 206B) and Arsenal (Exit 206C) will be closed. When the southbound traffic is shifted in 2023,  traffic from Arsenal and Cherokee will not be able to get to southbound I-55. In addition, there will be reduced lanes on other sections of I-55 in both directions between Virginia and Gasconade for other bridge maintenance during 2022.

In late 2022, crews will work on the sections of roadway between Virginia and Gravois Creek Bridge, just south of Green Park Road – with two places where traffic will shift. One shift is between Virginia and River Des Peres and the second is between Green Park and Gravois. When traffic is shifted to the southbound lanes, the northbound ramp to Loughborough (Exit 202C) and the ramps from Loughborough and from Germania to the northbound interstate will be closed. When traffic is moved to the northbound lanes ,  the southbound ramps to Loughborough (Exit 202C) and Germania (Exit 202B) will be closed, as will the ramp from Germania to the northbound interstate. Again, there will also be reduced lanes on other sections of I-55 between Virginia and the bridge at Gravois Creek, as crews maintain other bridges in that area.

There may also be some impacts to three bike trails that run along the corridor in 2023.  The River Des Peres trail and the Grant’s Trail are expected to have minimal closures (one or two day closures) as crews work remove concrete and set formwork overhead.  The Carondelet Trail will have some significant impacts as crews work on the railroad bridge near the trail. The trail will be closed from August 2023 through early 2025 as crews bring equipment in and out of the area to work on the bridge over the railroad. The department is looking at various ways to reduce those impacts as much as possible. To get information on trail closures, and other updates along the project, please sign up for the I-55 corridor e-update list.

At the end of the project, the entire corridor will be resurfaced to eliminate any lane markings caused by the traffic shifts. This will provide a clean surface to put down the final lane striping.  Most likely, the first part of the resurfacing work in the northern section will take place in 2023, with the remainder taking place in early 2024. However, until that resurfacing is complete, drivers may experience a slight bump between the existing pavement and the new bridges – that will be more level once the final layer of asphalt is added.

Will this impact detour routes for the I-255 project on the Jefferson Barracks Bridge?

The Jefferson Barracks bridge will be worked on at the same time as this project.   Crews will work to minimize the impacts of construction, although I-55 will be an alternate route for drivers attempting to avoid the construction.

Why doesn’t MoDOT close the entire corridor to work on the bridges?

Although closing the corridor (similar to that done for I-64) might get the construction completed quicker, overall, the impacts to travel in the region would be significantly impacted, and much of the work is less extensive.  Many of the bridges along the I-64 corridor needed to be completely rebuilt (instead of simply getting a deck or driving surface repair) and unlike the I-64 corridor there are not good options for alternate travel to give people other options to travel between the city of St. Louis, Illinois, south St. Louis County and Jefferson County.