St. Paul Bridge Closed To Traffic This Weekend

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- The Kellogg-Third Street Bridge is closed to all traffic and pedestrians Friday.

The bridge is 30 years old and inspectors recently found cracks on the outside, so they'll be reducing traffic to just the inside lanes.

In order to reduce the lanes, they'll be closing the bridge from 9 a.m. Friday morning through the weekend.

It will reopen Monday with two westbound lanes and one eastbound lane, indefinitely.

City officials said some of its construction no longer complies with state and federal standards. They are concerned about having traffic on the portion of this bridge that overhangs the piers.

According to preliminary estimates, it will cost about $8 million to fix the bridge. So the city is looking into replacing it altogether.

"The mayor and the council president have said as we've looked at this bridge it's not very friendly for pedestrians, bikes, bus rapid transit with the gateway so is it wiser to look at doing something like a replacement of the bridge instead of putting $8 million into something that just gets us what we have today," said St. Paul City Engineer John Maczko.

City officials said they are looking at asking for state and federal money to make that happen. It's a critically important arterial street, and there is not a sufficient long-term alternative route so they want to move quickly, officials said.

Engineers say bridges typically are supposed to last at least 50 years. A 2013 report by the group Transportation for America found that in 10 years, one in four bridges across the nation will be more than 65 years old, when it's more likely to be structurally deficient.