As noted in the previous post, the Iowa DOT released its five-year draft May 8. The only items for the I-74 Mississippi River bridge area concerned right-of-way and some paving. There had been $63 million set aside for bridge construction, but that was dropped because Illinois had not budgeted any money in the next five years on its side — until a week ago.
Now, the Quad-City Times says, Illinois has put it back in and “local officials hope that investment will convince Iowa to maintain its construction funding.” A month earlier would have made it much easier to be convinced.
Where is Iowa going to pull that $63 million back from? A possible source is from the projects highlighted in the press release that either were new or moved up a year.
It’s interesting that Illinois is saying, or hoping, that this paint job on the I-74 bridge will be the last, although to be fair the last big job was 15 years ago. Iowa still has money programmed for bridge rehab in 2015 and 2017. This will also be another project to watch.