Governor JB Pritzker and the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) were joined today by local officials and community leaders to announce the completion of a multiyear project to install a new deck on the Interstate 280 Sgt. John F. Baker Jr. Mississippi River Bridge in Rock Island County, an improvement that will result in a smoother, safer ride on one of the state’s key travel corridors. Made possible by Gov. Pritzker’s historic, bipartisan Rebuild Illinois capital program and a partnership with Iowa, the project included patching and resurfacing east of the bridge for a combined investment of $65.7 million.
“This is exactly what Rebuild Illinois, our state’s massive infrastructure modernization program, is all about: to make life better and easier for our people,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “When we make smart investments in the roadways that working families and businesses rely on, we’re constructing a better future for the entire region — one where parents and their children can commute with confidence and where new factories and distribution centers are choosing to locate in Illinois, so they can reliably ship their products across the nation.”
The Baker Bridge opened in 1973 and today carries more than 28,000 vehicles a day, almost 20% of which are trucks. The new deck is the first replacement since the bridge opened.
* Pritzker then asked if anyone in the news media had any questions. Nobody did…
It’s kinda difficult to encourage people to support local journalism when this sort of thing happens.
