“We just secured $393+ MILLION through the [Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act] to fully replace the I-55 bridge connecting America through #Memphis,” Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) posted late last week. “As @POTUS would say, it’s a ‘Big **** Deal’! And it sure is — it’s likely the largest single investment the federal government has ever made in Memphis.”
Cohen and iPhone
Posted to YouTube by Corey Strong
In a new political ad, Corey Strong looked back to 2007 when the iPhone was introduced and Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) was first elected to Congress, noting that Cohen had been around “longer than the iPhone.”
“What have we seen?” Strong asks. “Do we have the infrastructure we need to succeed? Have we seen the growth that neighboring areas have seen? No.”
The Zoo
Posted to Facebook by Juicy J
Juicy J’s new album Memphis Zoo (released last week) features amazing cover art (right). Sharks swim in a glass Pyramid aquarium. A grizzly bear plays basketball. A masked-up giraffe holds a ring of keys, promising escape.
Ninth District Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Memphis), a senior member of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, announced Friday that the Tennessee and Arkansas Departments of Transportation were successful in securing $393,750,000 for a new Interstate 55 Bridge over the Mississippi River at Memphis to be known as America’s River Crossing.
Cohen has worked with the Biden-Harris Administration to secure funding for this project, inviting Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg to Memphis when the Hernando DeSoto Bridge was out of commission in May of 2021 to see how critical the Mid-South transportation corridor is to interstate commerce. Cohen also joined Administrator Shailen Bhatt of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) during his trip to Memphis in May to talk about the need to replace the I-55 Bridge and his concerns that it would be vulnerable to serious damage in an earthquake and is far out of date.
In addition to writing a letter of support, Cohen has discussed the regional and national significance of this project in Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearings, most recently with Buttigieg on June 28. See his recent committee hearing exchanges with Buttigieg here and with Bhatt in May here.
Cohen was the only member of the current Tennessee and Arkansas Congressional delegations to vote for the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), also known as the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the source of major funding for the project.
Cohen made the following statement:
“I’m proud to have worked with the President, the U.S. Department of Transportation, as well as the outstanding team in Memphis and the governor’s office in successfully getting this extremely large and necessary grant for the construction of the new bridge. As President Biden would say, ‘This is a big … deal!’ And it sure is: Probably the biggest investment made in Memphis by the federal government ever.
“I was proud to vote for the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that created this Bridge Program and allow these funds to be available for Memphis. Mine was the only vote for the bill in either the Tennessee or the Arkansas Congressional delegations. We are two red states. This shows how President Biden works for the best interest of the country. It is important to America and not politically good for a red or a blue state. It’s the United States of America and that’s what this bridge is for. Transportation across America creates jobs and improves our economy — America’s River Crossing.”
Memphis Mayor Paul Young made the following statement:
“This historic investment in Memphis will help further connect our community with the region and the world. Memphis’ prominence as a logistics hub is made stronger by the investment in this key piece of infrastructure and we are honored by the grant.”
Greater Memphis Chamber President and CEO Ted Townsend made the following statement:
“For over two decades, the Greater Memphis Chamber has led local efforts to ensure a new bridge would be built further solidifying Memphis as a global logistics leader. Over those 20 years, Congressman Steve Cohen has remained a constant advocate with us. We want to appreciate the leadership of the Tennessee Department of Transportation for helping to initiate and convene this most recent effort, the Mayor’s office — both Jim Strickland and Paul Young — for being local advocates, and the Chamber’s Transportation Committee for being persistent and never taking their eye off of the ball.”
The Tennessee and Arkansas Departments of Transportation submitted a joint application through the Bridge Investment Program (BIP) Large Bridge Projects Program. The Federal Highway Administration announced today that the project will move forward.
The I-55 Bridge across the Mississippi River will close for two weeks or more starting Sunday.
The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) said during that time contract crews “will hydro-demolition the bridge deck and provide a new polymer concrete overlay.” The overlay has strict temperature restrictions. So, all work is weather-dependent.
The closure is the first of two allowed in the bridge contract.
Here are details for local travelers:
• Sunday, June 9, 8:00 pm through Sunday, June 23, 8:00 pm
• I-55 southbound will be closed at Bridgeport Road in Arkansas
• I-55 northbound will be closed at South Parkway.
• Local traffic will be allowed to continue to the McLemore exit
The interchange has been called the worst in Tennessee. (Credit: Brandon Dill)
Whatever happened to the project to fix the interchange at Crump Ave. and I-55?
It’s back after seven years of quiet. Construction could start soon and last up to four-and-a-half years. It could close Riverside Drive southbound completely and Crump Blvd. at Third. It could close the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge (the Old Bridge) for two weeks. It could cost up to $184.9 million.
The Flyer last wrote about this project in 2015 when state officials decided to pause their plan for the interchange project. The move came amidst a rising chorus of concerns from many that the project would close the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge for nine months, beginning in 2017.
Officials knew the project needed to be done. Then-Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) Commissioner John Schroer called it “the worst interchange we have in the state of Tennessee.” Then-Memphis Mayor A C Wharton called it “malfunction junction.” But officials wanted it done right and hit pause.
“Over the past several weeks, we have heard from residents, business owners, elected officials, and other stakeholders in Memphis and in Arkansas, and we understand there is a significant level of concern over a full closure of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge,” Schroer said in a statement at the time. “We want to take the opportunity to address those concerns before moving forward with construction.”
However, TDOT continued to work on the project. Meetings to find contractors for the project began in early March this year. Bids were open on the massive project after that and closed on March 25th.
(Credit: TDOT)
The three lowest bids on the project were from Dement Construction Co. ($184.9 million), Superior Construction Co. ($157.9 million), and Bell & Associates Construction ($141.2 million).
(Credit: TDOT/the project design from 2015)(Credit: TDOT/ The project design from 2022)
The new plan for the interchange seems similar to the prevailing design proposed in 2015. It would replace the current cloverleaf design at Crump and I-55 with a roundabout for local traffic and a long, elevated, sweeping, flyover curve to keep I-55 traffic flowing without slowing to (or below) the current posted speed limit of 25 miles per hour.
(Credit: TDOT)
The cloverleaf design was built in the mid-1960s. It was meant to handle 28,500 vehicles daily, with 8 percent truck traffic, according to the Federal Highway Adminstration [FHWA]. In 2015, traffic averaged 60,330 vehicles daily with 26 percent trucks. By 2035, the interchange will see 84,500 vehicles per day, according to FHWA projections.
(Credit: Brandon Dill)
No firm date for construction to begin on the project is set. However, bidding documents show construction companies must complete the project within a maximum of four-and-a-half years and a minimum of two-and-a-half years.
(Credit: TDOT)
The new plan would remove the entire south portion of the existing I-55 bridge over Metal Museum Drive and build a new one. Doing this would call for a two-week shutdown of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge, according to bid documents. The construction sequence shows the project completed over six stages. The bridge closure would come at stage 4c and reopen at the beginning of stage five.
(Credit; Brandon Dill)
Once construction is underway, a series of alternate routes from interstates I-55, I-40, and I-240 will be implemented for traffic driving around the city. For example, those on I-55 northbound will be routed to use I-240 northbound.
(Credit: TDOT)
The project will also involve a number of local street detours. The major detour will come as the plan calls for southbound lanes of Riverside Drive to be closed in stage two of construction and would not open until the project is complete. For this, one detour calls for Riverside traffic to be diverted to E. Carolina, to Florida, and to South Parkway.
Crump would also be closed at Florida. For this, the state plan would reroute much of the street’s traffic to South Parkway and Third streets.
(Credit: TDOT)
The project comes with a set of restrictions for builders. Temporary lanes closures will only be allowed between 8 p.m. and 6 a.m. and only eight of them can happen on weekends. Noise walls must be built at the beginning of the project and pile drivers cannot be used until they are.
More details on the project are expected from TDOT officials later this week.
Whatever Happened To is an occasional series that explores projects and plans that were big news when they were announced but have seemingly gone quiet.
Some of you may remember that back in 2015 the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) announced plans to shut down the I-55 bridge over the Mississippi in Memphis for nine months. TDOT said it needed to do so in order to install a “roundabout” interchange on the Memphis end of the bridge. The entire project was to begin in early 2017 and last through November 2019, effectively screwing up traffic across the bridge and through South Memphis for two years.
It didn’t happen. And that’s mainly because some people with common sense (including this newspaper’s staff) raised hell against it, pointing out that shutting down the “old bridge” was a nightmare scenario, one that would funnel 100,000 vehicles a day (double its then-current traffic count) across the Hernando DeSoto Bridge and expose the entire Central U.S. to a potential shutdown of commerce should something happen to the one remaining bridge.
Over in West Memphis, state Senator Keith Ingram’s hair was on fire. He rightly pointed out that the shutdown would “devastate local economies throughout Eastern Arkansas and would cripple emergency services in the event of an accident or natural disaster.”
The late Phil Trenary, president and CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber, cited a post-9/11 study that showed that closing both of the city’s bridges would have a negative economic impact of about $11 billion to $15 billion per year, adding that the impact on business would be “significant to not only the local economy but to the national economy.”
The Flyer’s Toby Sells wrote a comprehensive cover story on the subject. We editorialized against the shutdown vociferously and often. Eventually, thanks to building public, political, and business opposition, the TDOT plan was mothballed, hopefully forever. The area’s leaders came to recognize that Memphis would be in big trouble if we ever got down to one bridge.
Oops.
As we all know, thanks to the discovery of a fissure in a structural beam on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge, the feared “down-to-one-bridge” scenario has happened. And as was predicted in 2015, traffic is backed up on I-40, through the city, and on the south I-240 loop, as 80,000 vehicles a day are funneled across a narrow highway bridge built 70 years ago to handle one-fourth that amount of traffic.
Imagine if the break on the Hernando DeSoto Bridge had been discovered in, say, June 2017, during TDOT’s proposed shutdown. Or worse, imagine if something should go awry on the I-55 bridge now. Can you say Helena, Arkansas? Or Dyersburg, Tennessee? Those are the nearest two Mississippi River crossings. Local — and national — commerce would suffer a horrific hit.
But thankfully the TDOT bridge-closure didn’t happen in 2017. People raised hell. The bureaucrats were stopped. Now, with any luck, the “new bridge” gets fixed in the next couple months, and we get back to normal. But we need a new normal. There’s a lesson to be learned here, and the time to act on it is now.
We have two bridges, both over a half-century old, both facing deterioration and maintenance issues. It’s obvious that Memphis needs a third bridge across the Mississippi. And it isn’t just about Memphis. It’s about the entire interstate commerce system through the middle of America, North and South, relying on a rickety, aging infrastructure that was built for the 1960s and 1970s. A new bridge addresses current and future issues. It could integrate with the I-69 corridor and maybe even incorporate space for future high-speed rail. Why not think big?
It’s not like we’d be asking for the moon. St. Louis has six major bridges across the Mississippi. Davenport, Iowa, has three. Hell, Dubuque, Iowa, has two bridges. We’re tied with Dubuque, people. It’s in our interest and in the country’s interest to plan for the future, not to wait until the two extant bridges fall completely apart. Officeholders and business leaders from Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi need to get together and form a commission to explore the best way to get this moving.
Patching a crack with overlaid slabs of steel is a temporary solution, a band-aid that doesn’t address the overarching issues of a deteriorating infrastructure. Moving toward getting a new bridge should become a priority now — not when we’re forced to deal with another bridge shutdown. We’ve been shown a glimpse of the future. It’s time to face it, realistically.
Predictions of the consequences from the planned, nine-months closure of the Memphis-Arkansas Bridge range from inconvenient to nightmarish, but a Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) official said there was simply no other way.
Speculation and worry followed last week’s announcement that TDOT plans to close the bridge while it builds a new interchange at I-55 and E.H. Crump. A public meeting about the project was held in West Memphis Monday. Another meeting is scheduled for 4 p.m. Thursday at Memphis Area Transit Authority Central Station.
The project will cost close to $35 million and will replace the current cloverleaf design of the interchange, which TDOT calls “outdated,” claiming it poses safety and efficiency concerns. The new design will feature a roundabout to connect I-55 traffic to downtown Memphis and curved ramps to allow I-55 thru traffic to continue on and off the bridge without slowing down.
Courtesy TDOT
An artists rendering of the proposed new interchange at I-55 and Crump.
The three-year construction project won’t begin until spring 2016 and the planned closure of the bridge won’t begin until spring 2017, said B.J. Doughty, TDOT communications director.
“We do not take this lightly; this is a major undertaking for us, as well,” Doughty said. “If there had been any other way … we would choose not to shut it down. We realize this is an enormous inconvenience for people.”
The long curved ramps to I-55 will be built over the roundabout, where the cloverleaf is now, Doughty said. To make way for big bridge pieces like beams and piers, there will be no place for traffic to pass, she said.
During construction, all I-55 traffic will have to be routed across the Hernando DeSoto M Bridge, and that has people worried.
Manny Belen, deputy engineer for the city of Memphis, said his office has expressed to TDOT that the project needs to be sensitive to the impact on businesses, commuters, downtown residents, freight movement, and emergency responders.
“Additionally, we’ve expressed concerns about the impact of the planned detour through the Midtown section of I-240 and the inevitable traffic congestion,” Belen said. “The response from TDOT is that this nine-months closure is the most prudent direction and the least impactful.”
Congressman Steve Cohen said he does not support the planned closure and believes the construction can be accomplished without closing the bridge. At a minimum, he said, any closure period should be expedited.
Paul Morris, president of the Downtown Memphis Commission, called the planned closure “painful,” but its results will dramatically improve the approach to downtown Memphis and reconnect the French Fort neighborhood to downtown.
“I certainly wish there were a way for them to do the work without closing the bridge, which is going to be very bad for downtown and West Memphis,” Morris said. “This is little comfort, but we will have the Big River Crossing over the Harahan open by the time of the closure, meaning that it will be easier to bike rather than drive across the Mississippi River.”
If the bridge is closed as TDOT plans, I-55 traffic would be diverted to I-240 through Midtown, up to I-40 and across the Hernando DeSoto Bridge. Doughty said TDOT plans to work closely with local law enforcement and emergency services to keep traffic running efficiently in case of an accident.
Doughty said TDOT closed a section of I-40 close to downtown Knoxville in 2008, and the project went “incredibly smoothly.”
Courtesy TDOT