The Mississippi River Bridge from Lansing into Wisconsin will shut down permanently on October 20th so work can move forward on the new bridge. 

DOT engineer Clayton Burke says they will start removing pieces of the bridge deck and various steel beams and preparing the bridge for the explosive implosion sometime in mid-December.

Demolition of the old bridge should be completed by spring of 2026. Burke says there will be a car ferry, but it will take some time to build the access along the river.

Burke says they should be ready to start moving cars across the river on the ferry by November – and should be able to operate the ferry through the winter months.

He says commercial trucks and large vehicles won’t be able to use the ferry.

Burke says they’ve been able to make some good progress on the new bridge.

The existing Lansing bridge carries about 22-hundred vehicles per day on average throughout the year.

story courtesy of Radio Iowa