Champ Clark Bridge Ranked No. 5 in Top 10 Bridges of 2019
by Roads & Bridges
Originally completed in 1928, the Champ Clark Bridge--so named for a former Missouri Speaker of the House--stood as a landmark along the Mississippi River for nearly a century. But like all man-made creations, its serviceable life eventually and inevitably came to an end—and a new alternative was required.
The bridge linked Louisiana, Missouri, an area of rolling hills that feature quite a lot of agricultural development, with Pittsfield, Illinois, where the soils are classically rich river bottom soils, ideal for farming. Its replacement structure now carries the same burden of community connection. What was once just 20 ft wide, with extremely narrow 10-foot shoulderless travel lanes now boasts a pair of 12-foot driving lanes and 10-foot shoulders in each direction, more than doubling the traversable width. For a rural area that has farming equipment as a regular part of the overall traffic mix, this improvement has been long overdue.
Due to the length of the cross-river spans, designers opted for steel girders over precast concrete, though precast did come into play elsewhere in the project.
“It made more sense to use steel on the river spans,” Terrence J. Colombatto, project manager for contractor Massman Construction Company, told Roads & Bridges. “The spans range from 260 feet to 420 feet in this area, and had we chosen concrete on those spans, we would have had to shorten the spans or go with a post-tensioned spliced concrete girder. We also would not have been able, likely, to reduce the piers in the river. But we did use precast on the approach spans. There are three approach spans we used concrete girders on.”
