Kiewit Infraestructure South Co. It will lead to the construction of a $ 787.5 million replacement from Intersate 55 bridge that crosses the Mississippi River between Tennessee and Arkansas in Memphis.
The project, also called America’s River Crossing, will replace the existing 75-year-old Pont I-55 to add capacity, improve safety standards, ensure route resilience, and maintain optimal operational conditions, according to the Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDot). The General Contractor Manager/Contractor with Kiewit Infraestructure South is being completed.
A shared TDot effort and the Arkansas Transport Department (Ardot), the new bridge will be larger and designed to fulfill modern seismic codes, as it is on the new Madrid Fallas line.
Built before the United States interstate system, the bridge was not built on the interstate rules, by TDot and Ardot, due to its age and construction, it was determined that seismic adjustments cost between $ 250 million and $ 500 million, classifying it as an unable to adapt.
According to the project information, the design of the cable bridge will be based on the “seismic design based on the displacement” philosophy, which aims to evaluate the ability to displace a structure and its hysterical cushion inherent with a certain load.
Through this approach, the bridge will be designed to stay without damage and operational after a 1,000-year seismic event and resist the collapse with a 2,500-year seismic event. Design is expected to reduce 25% or more seismic demand for the foundations of the bridge.
In October 2024, TDOT selected Parsons Transport Group Inc. For engineering and design services. The design is underway in the project, which will begin to acquire right -wing by the end of this year and begin construction in 2026.
In a December 2023 application for the Federal Program Bridge Investment, TDot and the Arkansas Department of Transport (Ardot) list the estimated total cost of the project at $ 787.5 million, and a four -year construction period provided in the third quarter of 2030.
The project was awarded about $ 400 million from the Federal Road Administration Pont Investment Program (FHWA) and the Tennessee and Arkansas transport departments are committed to up to $ 200 million towards the project, which sets the highest single transport investment in the history of the State for Tennessee, according to TDot.
In its announcement of more than $ 5 billion in bridge investment program awards, the FHWA says that the project will receive $ 394 million as part of a round of subsidies “that will fund the reconstruction, repair and restoration, using materials made by Americans, of 12 significant national bridges.”
The bridge will support the 64,000 planned vehicles that will cross the Mississippi river between Arkansas and Tennessee every day by 2050, according to TDot. Currently, more than 38,000 daily vehicles cross the bridge.
