The primary route from the west end of Marion County to downtown Columbia reopened Tuesday after eight months.
The Mississippi Department of Transportation made repairs to the two bridges on Mississippi 198 that allowed them to be safely passable for car traffic. They’re posted at a weight limit of 12 tons.
The plan remains to the bridges, which carries an estimated cost of $10 million. They will have to be closed down again when construction begins.
The state closed the bridges Jan. 4 because of decaying wooden piles underneath them, which has been a statewide crisis. The Marion County Board of Supervisors had complained last year that federal inspectors were immediately closing down county bridges but leaving open similar state bridges.
They link U.S. 98 with downtown with about 3,000 cars a day driving over them before they were closed, according to state traffic counts. While the bridges were closed, motorists coming from the west side of the Pearl River had to either take Old Foxworth Road or go around to Lumberton Road.
“MDOT’s number one priority is safety,”Southern District MDOT Commissioner Tom King said in a news release. “That’s why inspections are so crucial, we were able to determine the bridge needed repairs and make them quickly to ensure everyone stayed safe.”
Pictured Above: An SUV drives across one of the bridges on Mississippi 198 Tuesday. The state reopened the bridges Tuesday after making repairs. The wood-pile structures had been closed since January. Plans are still to replace them. | Photo by Susan Amundson
