 County
Plans to Replace Aging Bridge
Friday, January 11,
2008
Livingston County has entered into a contract with Chariton County to replace an 83-year-old bridge on the county line road between Sumner and Fountain Grove in southeast Livingston County.
The existing bridge is a wooden structure measuring 16 feet wide and 131 feet long. It will be replaced with a concrete structure 24 feet wide and 200 feet long.
The thoroughfare, county road 306, is popular among farmers hauling grain to Sumner and the bridge is in poor condition, according to Presiding Commissioner Eva Danner.
“It has a lot of issues,” she said, noting that among the problems, is the fact that the bridge is subject to flooding.
The new project calls for obtaining additional right-of-way and raising the road by about eight feet.
The bridge was built in 1925 and currently has a 4-ton rating. Bridges must have at least a 13-ton rating before school buses can travel on them.
The project will be funded through the federally-funded bridge replacement off-system program whereby the federal government, through the Missouri Department of Transportation, funds 80 percent of the project cost. The remaining 20 percent will be evenly split between Livingston and Chariton counties. The overall cost of the bridge is expected to be around $775,000 with Livingston County's portion being around
$77,500. Bids will
likely be sought early next year with Shafer, Kline, and Warren,
of Macon, serving as the engineering firm. Construction is
scheduled for 2009. Livingston
County typically splits costs of construction on bridges located
on the county roads. Recently, a bridge was replaced on
the county line between Livingston and Grundy counties and the
cost was split between the two counties. BRO funding is
allocated to counties based on the square footage of deficient
bridges in the counties. "As we improve our county bridges
we get less funding," Danner said. The annual allocation
for the last couple of years has been around $225,000. |
