Dover Bridge finally funded

DOVER — Work on a new U.S. Highway 2 bridge is expected to start in the next few months.

No fooling.

Governor Butch Otter announced on Friday Idaho is receiving $148 million in federal stimulus funding, $38 million of which will be used to construct a new Dover Bridge, an aging and deteriorating structure which has attracted national attention.

A new Dover Bridge was among eight “shovel-ready” transportation projects in Idaho approved for federal stimulus funding. The other highway improvement projects are located in Moscow, Boise, Twin Falls, Chubbuck, Rigby, Pocatello and Island Park.

The projects will be advertised for bidding in May and June.

“These projects will create good jobs for Idaho’s families this summer and improve the safety and quality of transportation infrastructure,” Otter said in a statement announcing the funding.

Mayor Randy Curless, one of the loudest cheerleaders for a new bridge, called the news “wonderful.”

“It will save lives,” he said. “I look at that crumbling pier every so often and it just scares the tar out of you.”

The existing steel truss bridge was built in 1937 and carries traffic over railroad tracks used by BNSF Railway and Pend Oreille Valley Railroad to transport cargo and hazardous materials.

The bridge has not aged gracefully. It’s periodically struck by over-height vehicles and its foundations are crumbling. The bridge’s sufficiency rating is a 3 on a scale of 100, according to the Idaho Transportation Department.

Popular Mechanics magazine included the bridge in a list of sorely needed transportation fixes in 2007 and it will be featured on an upcoming History Channel program that had a working title of “Crumble.”

A television production crew shot footage of the bridge in January and conducted interviews of Dover and ITD officials. The program is in post-production and is expected to air sometime in May or June.

“I believe that kind of publicity does put a certain amount of pressure on groups to get some action moving,” Curless said.

Plans to replace the bridge have been pending for at least a decade, but had to be shelved because of a lack of transportation funding.

“We’re ready to go,” said Barbara Babic, ITD’s Panhandle spokeswoman.

Babic said the new bridge will resemble the Westmond Bridge on U.S. 95, which is wide and has no overhead obstructions. The new bridge will be shifted slightly north of the current bridge’s location. The old bridge will be removed, although it will remain in place during construction of the new bridge.

“It is wide enough to accommodate future widening of the highway on either side so we don’t have to redo the bridge,” she said.