Bridge projects are wrapping-up in Greene County.

County Engineer Wade Weiss says there are two bridge projects still underway in the county. One is the E-39 bridge near Ralston and the other is the E-57 bridge. Weiss notes the E-39 bridge started July 31st, due to an endangered bird species that kept the contractor from beginning work earlier. The E-57 bridge replacement started in September. It was on a five-year plan to be done in the future, but due to a Pepsi truck crashing through the guardrail last year, Weiss wanted to move the project up to this year.

Both bridges will be extended to 30-feet-six-inches wide. Weiss says when they replace a bridge on a paved route, they make them all 30-feet wide.

“That’s a statewide standard that most counties have adopted for safety. Being able to get the guardrail in, and obviously paved roads get a little higher traffic count usually.”

Both bridges cost about $500,000 each. Weiss points out that he uses the farm-to-market system, or the road use tax funds to pay for all bridge projects.

“Greene County was fortunate that we’re part of this extra dime road use tax. So that increased our construction budget to about $975,000 per year. Now that’s for roads, bridges, any type of construction that we do that’s let through the DOT (Department of Transportation).”

The third bridge project was replacing the N-65 Hyde Park Bridge for $2.2 million. The project started in January and was completed in October.