Legislation passed this year allows an innovative funding approach for the proposed Mississippi River crossing in downtown St. Louis – a private company that would build the bridge and get its investment back by charging tolls.

Specifically, this legislation allows for a public-private partnership between the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission and a private company to finance, build, maintain, and operate the new bridge. The law allows this financing only for this specific project. While MoDOT will own the bridge jointly with Illinois, the private partner would build, maintain, and operate the bridge through a long-term lease agreement.

The current Poplar Street Bridge in St. Louis, which handles most of the traffic between Illinois and St. Louis, experiences 90 minutes of rush-hour congestion a day and the average delay is 10 minutes. By 2020 rush-hour congestion is expected to double to 3 hours, with the average delay increasing to 55 minutes, if no new highway capacity is added.