Keokuk – Hamilton Bridge
Coordinates: 40 ° 23 '25 " N , 91 ° 22' 24" W.
| Keokuk – Hamilton Bridge | ||
|---|---|---|
 Keokuk Municipal Bridge (2006) |
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| use |
 US Highway 136
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| Crossing of | Mississippi River | |
| place | Keokuk , Iowa and Hamilton , Illinois | |
| Entertained by | Iowa Department of Transportation | |
| construction | Girder bridge | |
| overall length | 1018 m | |
| Longest span | 84 m | |
| building-costs | $ 21,901,870 | |
| opening | 1985 | |
| location | ||
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The Keokuk – Hamilton Bridge is a four-lane road bridge over the Mississippi River between Keokuk , Iowa , and Hamilton , Illinois . When it was completed in 1985, it took over US Highway 136 , which until then ran over the neighboring Keokuk Municipal Bridge , a combined rail and road bridge from 1916. Both bridges are located downstream behind Lock and Dam No. 19 , one of 29 barrages on the upper reaches of the river .
The first road connection between Keokuk and Hamilton was via the first Keokuk & Hamilton Bridge, opened in 1871 . The railway bridge , designed as a truss bridge , could also be used by wagons and pedestrians, for which wooden planks were attached on both sides next to the track. With the development and steady increase in automobile traffic at the beginning of the 20th century , alternating use with railroad traffic was no longer sufficient. By 1916 the wrought iron bridge was replaced by a steel truss bridge, built on the same bridge piers. Road traffic ran on two lanes on one level above the truss, the track inside below.
From the 1970s, there were first efforts to finance the construction of a separate road bridge, as the two-lane Keokuk Municipal Bridge could no longer cope with the ever-increasing traffic and the curve of the western approach was a danger for trucks . Negotiations between the states of Iowa and Illinois lasted until the early 1980s. After the search for a location by the Iowa Department of Transportation (operator of the new bridge), work on the four-lane girder bridge could begin immediately downstream behind the Keokuk Municipal Bridge ; the opening took place on November 23, 1985. The average daily traffic volume in 2013 was 12,400 vehicles.
Web links
- Keokuk-Hamilton Bridge: US-136 Mississippi River Crossing At Keokuk. John A. Weeks III.
Individual evidence
- ^ Iowa Roads: US 136 (IA). ( Memento from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Roadnow.
- ↑ Steve Dunn: Happy (25th) birthday, bridge. Daily Gate City, November 24, 2010. Retrieved November 26, 2017.
- ^ Illinois Travel Statistics 2014. State of Illinois, Department of Transportation, p. 15 (Structure # 034-0062).