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Missouri have organized coalitions to keep the pressure on Congress to allot as many federal dollars as possible. Each state
is also hoping for as thick a slice of the TEA-21 pie's state-by-state funding allocation.
With the McKinley Bridge closed off temporarily for financial and safety reasons, and with more than 120,000 vehicles daily
traversing the Poplar Street Bridge, avenues for commercial travel - and avenues to the region's increased global
competitiveness - are congesting and wearing thin.
This is the message with which a number of prominent Illinois and Missouri voices are bending Congress' collective ear.
The proposed and designed New Mississippi River Bridge, according to the Illinois Department of Transportation, is
estimated to cost $1.6 billion, including the span itself and major roadway relocations.
IDOT District 8 program development engineer Mary Lamie said $308 million of the total is funded; funding is in place to
build a tri-level interchange in East St. Louis, at the east bank of the new bridge, joining Interstates 55, 70 and 64.
Funding has also been secured for the project to relocate Illinois Route 3 from Venice to River Park Drive in East St.
Louis.
But $1.3 billion of the whole effort remains unfunded and dependent upon how much Illinois and Missouri are able to garner
from TEA-21, which is expected to begin being pondered by Congress in March.
Bridge proponents such as Bruce Holland, chairman of Leadership Council Southwestern Illinois' transportation committee,
said the key to making this massive project go is to convince Congress that not only do the two states need their fair share
of the state-by-state allocations, they also need even more discretionary dollars from TEA-21 - federal dollars that are
granted off the top of the budget, before state allocations are even discussed.
And to be the recipient of those discretionary transportation project funds, Holland said, the region has got to convince
Washington that the new Mississippi River Bridge - what will be the fifth-longest cable-stayed bridge in the world and the
widest in the world - is not just a Midwest project, but a "mega project" that affects the national flow of goods from east to
west.
"The U.S. House and Senate are just starting drafts for this bill," Holland said. "We believe this project is significant
on a national scale and that it deserves serious consideration as a mega project. Ours is one of only two places in the U.S.
where there are three major interstates crossing over one bridge."
If anything would happen to the Poplar Street Bridge - such as terrorist activity - it could effectively create a logjam in
terms of global competitiveness and commodities flow, Holland said.
"It would cripple our entire area," he said.
HNTB project manager Keith Hinkebein reiterated the regional importance of this effort.
"The Mississippi River Bridge project is not an Illinois project or a Missouri project," Hinkebein said. "It's a regional
project, one that will benefit and affect the entire metropolitan community."
U.S. Rep. Jerry Costello from Illinois District 20 and U.S. Sen. Christopher "Kit" Bond, the senior senator from Missouri,
are working in tandem to keep the Southern Illinois and greater St. Louis' regional transportation needs in front of
legislators.
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A member of the U.S. House transportation and infrastructure committee, Costello himself will play an active role in
writing the new federal transportation bill.
In addition to Leadership Council, Forward Metro St. Louis - a coalition comprised of members from Civic Progress, the St.
Louis Regional Chamber & Growth Association and the Regional Business Council - is actively lobbying Congress to prioritize
the new bridge project. The Transportation for Illinois Coalition, organized by the Illinois State Chamber of Commerce, is
another diverse group representing business, labor and industry.
"Organizing and solidifying coalitions like these makes a profound difference, especially in terms of making appointments
with decision makers in Washington and getting face time with the right people," Holland said.
Leadership Council executive director Jim Pennekamp said the Mississippi River is widely recognized as the "choke point" in
terms of goods flow.
"In terms of volume, the Mississippi River today has fewer vehicle lanes spanning it than there were in the late 1960s," he
said. "Without the Eads Bridge and the McKinley Bridge, and with an increasing number of vehicles crossing the Poplar Street
Bridge, the pulse of our region's commodities flow - and its global competitiveness - continues to be restricted. The U.S.
Department of Transportation has already evaluated some $60 billion in transportation needs. Certainly Jerry Costello has
championed this project for us from the beginning. But it's going to continue to be a serious challenge to get this funded."
Pennekamp said the new bridge project is one of IDOT's top two federal transportation projects in terms of priority. The
other, he said, is the proposal to improve South Wacker Drive in Chicago.
"I expect to be very active in promoting the interests of Illinois with my colleague, Congressman (Bill) Lipinski (U.S.
District 3) and other members of the transportation and infrastructure committee," Costello said. "Illinois did well in the
last round of TEA-21 funding in 1998, ranking 8th out of 50 states in overall funding. I think our state should do even better
in this reauthorization bill."
Illinois State Chamber president and CEO Douglas L. Whitley said the chamber would continue to voice what it sees as a true
transportation crisis.
"A crisis is facing our nation's highway systems," Whitley said. "Improvements to and expansions of our highway system are
not keeping up with the increase in vehicle traffic. The cost of road congestion to the U.S. economy was nearly $78 billion in
1999, more than triple what it was 20 years earlier. Billions and billions more are lost to companies when their products
don't reach their destinations on time. There are many consequences of a sub par system: congestion, decreased productivity,
more accidents and diminished global competitiveness."
Whitley said U.S. DOT statistics show that a minimum of $50 billion annually in federal investment in the nation's highway
improvements is necessary just to maintain current physical conditions of the U.S.
editor/publisher: Kerry Smith
email: ksmith@ibjonline.com
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