July 12, 2016: The now-former US 54 bridge across the Mississippi River, whose replacement was built right beside it.
My string of unbroken Mississippi River crossings was clipped on Aug. 3 when a replacement for the US 54 Champ Clark Bridge opened at Louisiana, Missouri. Story: St. Louis Post-Dispatch. This is the only crossing between Alton and Hannibal.
The next replacement across the Father of Waters will be an easy one to get, the I-74 Bridge in the Quad Cities. But also by the end of next year, US 63 will have a new span at Red Wing, Minnesota.
It’s debatable among hard-core roadgeeks, or at least me, if one bridge built right beside the other counts as a lost clinch. I can still probably say that I’ve traveled the highways in question unbroken. But when we’re talking major projects, like these — or the $6.4 billion San Francisco Bay Bridge replacement that did slightly relocate I-80 over the bay — there’s a “specialness” factor that doesn’t come into a little concrete span over a smaller body of water.