A new four-lane bridge will likely be constructed some time in 2012, said Craig Falkum, project manager with the Minnesota Department of Transportation.

Falkum, who talked to a crowd of area residents at an open house Oct. 6 in the La Crescent High School cafeteria, gave a rough timeline of events.

The current bridge, which is over 40 years old, is safe, he said, and has been inspected four times since the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge in Minneapolis in 2007.

“The bridge is safe,” Falkum said of the I-90 bridge. “But it does have some cracking and the metal is getting old. It's fatiguing and we have to do constant maintenance on it.”

Total costs for the project, which will be split between the states of Minnesota and Wisconsin, are estimated at $140 to $180 million n roughly half for the bridge itself and half for approaches to the bridge. The states will split the cost of the bridge, he said, and pay for the approaches on their respective sides.

“The Minnesota side has got the interchange with Hwy. 61, so the Minnesota side is going to have a lot more cost,” Falkum said.

While there may be short delays in traffic, he said, there will not be any major disruptions.

“Traffic is going to be maintained on I-90 throughout this project,” he said. “We may have two lanes, but under most of our options we're going to have four lanes open for traffic.”

Preliminary designs for the bridge and interchange at Hwy. 61, as well as environmental impact documents required for the project, will likely be done by the fall of 2009, he said.

Final designs are expected by the fall of 2011.

“We've got money available July 1, 2012, so we'll start the project sometime in 2012,” Falkum said.

With the Mississippi River, bluffs, rest area, two boat launches, the lock and dam, and the Canadian Pacific Railroad running through this area, he said, “the project itself is not very long, but it’s pretty complex.”

“There also is a Mississippi River trail, which is part of the Great River Road, and that Mississippi River trail n there’s a bicycle route which goes from New Orleans all the way out to Lake Itasca n goes through this area, and it’s not a very good crossing (right now), so we’re trying to work on that, so we get a little better crossing (area),” he said.

Designs for three alternatives n a concrete box, steel box girder or extra dosed n for the bridge were on display, and Falkum said the work would not directly impact residences or businesses.

In comparing these three alternatives, Bill Ohm, of La Crescent, asked how a bike path running through the area would differ. (You can see these designs on MnDOT’s website at www.dot.state.mn.us/d6/projects/dresbachbridge/documents.html.)

“The bike path is about the same in all of those,” Falkum said. “We have some ideas where we want to put the bike path, but we don’t have anything sketched in right now.”