May 7, 2018: An elevator would provide a more direct connection from Bettendorf’s Riverfront Trail (seen at bottom left) to the future I-74 bridge, whose Iowa landing will be just a bit upstream from the current one.
The city of Bettendorf will pay for an eight-story elevator for access to the multi-use trail that’s incorporated into the new I-74 bridge, reports the Rock Island Dispatch-Argus. The elevator, which would be close to the river, isn’t part of the bridge work itself. The trail returns to ground level at US 67 (Grant Street), the article says.
The timeline on the bridge’s official website has an arch motif to correspond to the bridge design, and it makes it LOOK like 2019 is starting the downswing. That’s sort of true, in that the groundwork for the bridge including right-of-way and pier-setting is done, but at the same time, 2018 was just getting into the phase of seeing the bridge actually start to take shape. The next three years in Bettendorf will see great change along the riverfront. Maybe, when complete, it will be enough to entice RAGBRAI to end there.