page_title: Great River Bridge
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Great River Bridge / History
caption_attribution_description: Taken from the Welcome Center on the Iowa side. U.S. 34 runs over the MacArthur Bridge. A higher quality image will be updated later.
context_page_description: The Great River Bridge is an asymmetrical, single tower cable-stayed bridge over the Mississippi River. It carries U.S. Route 34 from Burlington, Iowa to the town of Gulf Port, Illinois.
context_section_description: Construction began in 1989, but work on the main tower did not begin until April 1990. The main tower is 370 feet (113 m) in height from the top of the tower to the riverbed. During the Great Flood of 1993, construction continued despite record crests on the Mississippi below. The final cost of the bridge was $49 million, about 16 percent over budget.
  The Great River Bridge replaced the MacArthur Bridge, an aging two-lane, cantilevered, steel toll bridge built in 1917. At the time, the bridge was in desperate need of repair, or replacement, as it swayed ominously when two semis crossed the bridge at the same time on the two lanes of traffic.  After the bridge was dismantled, the engineers discovered that the supports weren't sunk into the bedrock far enough, causing undermining of the piers. The new bridge is five lanes wide (two westbound, three eastbound), with piers sunk over 90 feet into bedrock, and provides a safer crossing across the Mississippi River than the old bridge.
caption: A night view of the bridge
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