Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge

The Stan Musial Veterans Memorial Bridge is a bridge across the Mississippi River between St. Clair County, Illinois, and the city of St. Louis, Missouri. Built between April 19, 2010, and July 2013, the bridge opened on February 9, 2014. The cable-stayed bridge has a main span of 1,500 feet .FeaturesThe main span of the bridge is 1500ft in length, part of a total span of 2,803 feet. It is 86ft wide. Cables stretch from the bridge deck to the tops of two A-shaped towers, which reach 435ft above I-70. The new bridge's main span is supported by 1000mi of 0.6in stay-cable strand, enough for nearly two round trips from St. Louis to Chicago. Nearly 15,000 tons of structural steel are used, along with 8,600 tons of reinforcing steel. Some 90,600 cubic yards of concrete are in the foundation, deck slab, and towers. At its completion, the bridge was the third-longest cable-stayed bridge in the United States.TrafficThe bridge was built to relieve traffic on nearby bridges, and to expand with traffic in the future. It carries four mainline traffic lanes, half as many as originally planned, with room to add a lane in each direction. It is designed so that a companion bridge could be built beside it. Initially, the new bridge was intended to reduce traffic by 20% on the Poplar Street Bridge, which carries I-55, I-64, I-70, and US 40; and 50% on the Martin Luther King Bridge.