| Washington Bridge | |
| Upstream: | --> |
| Downstream: | --> |
| Material: | Concrete girder |
| Opened: | 1934 |
| Dedicated: | --> |
The Washington Bridge is a concrete girder bridge that carries Route 47 over the Missouri River at Washington, Missouri It replaces a cantilever truss bridge of the same name that passed between Franklin County, Missouri and Warren County, Missouri. It has also been known as the Route 47 Missouri River Bridge.[1]
The bridge was built in 1934. Its main span was 474.6feet and it had a total length of 2561.3feet and a deck width of 22feet. Its vertical clearance was 14.6feet. The bridge carried one lane of automobile traffic in each direction.
The Missouri Department of Transportation shut down the bridge at 7:30 am on August 11, 2007, claiming to have discovered problems during regularly scheduled inspections.[2] As the bridge is similar to the I-35W Mississippi River bridge which collapsed in Minnesota, locals have speculated that the inspection and closure were related to this incident. This resulted in a 60 mile (100 km) round-trip detour to the nearest open crossing over the Missouri river. The bridge was soon reopened, but was again intermittently closed in the following weeks.[3] MoDOT eventually completed a rehabilitation project in 2008 and 2009 as a stopgap measure until funding could be identified to replace the bridge.
Construction on a replacement bridge, located just to the west of the old bridge, began in 2016. The new bridge features wider lanes, shoulders, and a pedestrian path which opened to traffic on Monday, December 3, 2018. The old bridge was demolished by explosives on April 11, 2019.[4]