May 22, 2012: This view of I-74 into Illinois will still be what drivers see until sometime in 2019-20.
The Quad-City Times breaks down the current construction timeline in the five-year plan for the I-74 bridge in an article from Monday. The public meetings were yesterday and today. For the next couple years, projects will be concentrated on other streets, but construction of the bridge itself is close enough that we can have actual years set for it. The Times says traffic will be on the new bridge in 2019 and completely open by late 2020.
To put this in Internet-speak: After years of being at the Duke Nukem Forever level of vaporware, IT’S HAPPENING!
*Note: As I was writing this, the DOT’s public-information page was not available, so that’s why there’s no link to there.