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Poplar Street Bridge

Image:Poplar Street Bridge KM.jpg
Official name	Bernard F. Dickman Bridge
Carries	8 lanes of I-55/I-64/I-70/US 40
Crosses	Mississippi River
Locale	St. Louis, Missouri and East St. Louis, Illinois
Design	steel girder bridge
Longest span	197.21 meters (647 feet)
Total length	659.59 meters (2,164 feet)
Clearance below	28.04 meters (92 feet)
AADT	120,000
Opening date	1967
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

The Poplar Street Bridge, officially the Bernard F. Dickman Bridge, completed in 1967, is a 647 foot (197m) long deck girder bridge across the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri and East St. Louis, Illinois. The bridge arrives on the Missouri shore line just south of the Gateway Arch.

The bridge carries three Interstate Highways and a U.S. Route over the river. It is crossed by approximately 120,000 vehicles daily, making it possibly the most heavily used bridge on the river. Some of that load is intended to be diverted to the New Mississippi River Bridge when and if it is constructed.

Interstate 55, Interstate 64, Interstate 70, and U.S. Highway 40 cross the Mississippi on the Poplar Street bridge. U.S. Highway 66 was also multiplexed over this bridge until 1979, and U.S. Highway 50 was routed over it before the interstates were constructed.

According to current construction plans, Interstate 70 will be realigned to cross the river via the proposed New Mississippi River Bridge in 2013.

Although the bridge's official name honors former St. Louis mayor Bernard F. Dickmann, the Poplar Street Bridge is always referred to as such in common usage, and the majority of St. Louisans are unaware of its official name. (Note: the Missouri end of the bridge sits over a surface street called Poplar, and the media started referring it to that name long before it opened as a result.)

[edit] See also

• List of crossings of the Upper Mississippi River

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Western Historical Manuscript Collection Photo Database Photographs in the Western Historical Manuscript Collection at the University of Missouri-St. Louis

Bridges of the Mississippi River
Upstream Eads Bridge Image:St Louis Metro Logo.gif	Poplar Street Bridge Image:I-55.svg Image:I-64.svg Image:I-70.svg Image:US 40.svg	Downstream MacArthur Bridge Image:US 66 (historic).svg