(Radio Iowa) – The Mississippi River Bridge from Lansing into Wisconsin will be shut down on October 20th so work can move forward on the new bridge. D-O-T 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. “The demolition will only start with the center portion, and the eastern portion of the bridge. And we have to leave the Iowa portion in place because it’s over a roadway and a railroad, and next to houses. So they will carefully take that apart piece by piece,” he says.

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. “We are actively constructing the landings on both the Iowa and the Wisconsin side. That’s going to take about four weeks, so by the end of October, those landings should be complete,” he says. “And then we have to build a roadway on the Wisconsin side that connects the landing on the river bank to the Wisconsin highway.” Burke says they should be ready to start moving cars across the river on the ferry by November. Burke says they should be able to operate the ferry through the winter months.

“Our contractor has kept the river channel open throughout the past two winters by breaking ice with their tugboat and barge. So, we’re just asking them to break the ice a little further to the north to keep the channel open for the car ferry,” Burke says. He says commercial trucks and large vehicle won’t be able to use the ferry. “We’re hoping to focus the ferry on commuters and people who need the crossing for essential services like medical services or groceries or getting to other businesses on each side of the river,” he says.

Burke says they’ve been able to make some good progress on the new bridge. “We’ve set some of the first steel beams for the for the new trust and the contract is making good progress. We’re staying on schedule to this so far for the spring of 2027 opening,” he says. Burke says the existing bridge carries about 22-hundred vehicles per day on average throughout the year.