ST. LOUIS — The 133-year-old Merchants Bridge celebrated its official reopening on Thursday, marking completion of a $222 million project to replace the vital structure connecting Missouri and Illinois near downtown St. Louis.
The Mississippi River crossing dating to 1889 owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis serves six Class I railroads and Amtrak. Its completion culminates almost a decade of planning and four years of reconstruction. It doubles the capacity of the bridge, which had been limited to one train at a time because of structural concerns.
Thursday’s event was attended by about 150 invited guest and featured elected officials and transportation leaders from Illinois and Missouri, along with representatives of TRRA, Bi-State Development/St. Louis Regional Freightway, and Walsh Construction.
“In our 133-year history, TRRA had never previously built a bridge, but we were looking to the future and the growth in freight volumes expected in the next 30 years and knew that replacing the Merchants Bridge and adding the needed capacity would be essential for us to capture some of that increased volume and solidify the region’s positioning as global freight hub,” said Asim Raza, TRRA’s chief legal officer and director of corporate affairs. “Our collaboration with the St. Louis Regional Freightway to position this project as the region’s No. 1 infrastructure project priority helped garner the national attention needed to secure federal funding, and today’s celebration is a signature moment to highlight the success of the bi-state, bi-partisan, public-private partnership that made this project possible.”
The Merchants Bridge required reconstruction due to speed, clearance and load restrictions. Not replacing the Merchants Bridge would have resulted in rail traffic being rerouted out of the region, potentially limiting shipping options for area rail-reliant businesses, increasing costs and lost jobs, and adding stress to an already over-burdened U.S. supply chain network.
Under general contractor Walsh Construction, reconstruction of the bridge used innovative methods that improved safety and speeded completion. Rail outages across the bridge were limited to just 30 days over the course of the four-year project. The Federal Railroad Administration awarded TRRA a $21.45 million Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant for the project in 2020; TRRA provided 90% of the construction costs.
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