The city of Mexico will soon be replacing two bridges on Pollock Road in separate projects.

The biggest of the two projects involves the bridge just northeast of the Missouri Military Academy (MMA) that spans the South Fork of the Salt River. The Missouri Department of Transportation estimates the bridge will cost around $1.3 million.

The city took the first steps in the process by selecting an engineering firm to design the bridge and provide construction services during the project. The total costs for engineering are just over $373,000 with about $83,500 of that amount accounting for construction services.

The Mexico City Council unanimously approved the contract at a regular meeting on June 26. City Public Works Director Drew Williford told the council the city had not budgeted for this project this fiscal year because of the time of the grant process. Williford said there have been enough cost savings in other areas to pay for the engineering.

“We do anticipate having sufficient funding to proceed,” Williford told the council.

The project is budgeted into the next two budgets because of the scope and time it will take to complete the project. The city has until September 2024 to have a construction contract in place but is hoping to get things rolling much sooner. However, the project will take some time to complete.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re still in construction the following winter,” Williford told the Ledger.

The city is responsible for all the costs and will be reimbursed through the grant process. This project is being completed through the Missouri BRO (Off-System Bridge Replacement) program. This particular project is one of the first using a new program implemented last year that allows cities to apply for funds rather than be at the mercy of the county government.

In the past, the BRO program allocated money to each county annually depending on the population size and other factors. If a city had a high priority for a bridge replacement, many times it also had to be a high priority for the county.

“It’s a better deal for the city and we’re fortunate to get selected for the process,” Williford told council members on June 26.

The state decided to change the BRO process because some counties were sitting on thousands, sometimes into the seven-digit range, of dollars in BRO funds. The reason? In the old system, the county had to come up with 20 percent of matching funds for the project. Smaller counties with bigger projects would have to save up and let their BRO balances increase until they had enough money to complete a project.

The new system lets the funds be allocated through a regional process that goes through a system already in place. MoDOT utilizes The Mark Twain Regional Council of Governments’ (MTRCOG) Transportation Advisory Committee (TAC) to help it decide where to spend state funding on a regional basis. Audrain County is a part of TAC. 

Presiding Commissioner Alan Winders explained at a recent sub-committee of TAC that decides where BRO funds are spent that the idea behind the subcommittee and the new system is to keep regional governments from having to battle with each other.

“What it did was keep us from competing with one another for our priorities,” Winders said at the TAC meeting that was held in Perry last month. “We don’t have to fight and know that Audrain County can only get theirs if Randolph County doesn’t get theirs.”

Winders said it also helps with the issue of counties having to sit on balances. With this program, the funds are allocated every five years and it’s up to the group to decide which projects get completed. There is a formula that helps the group decide based on need that includes other factors like the square footage of deck space a county has.

“We can’t just sit on those balances,” Winders said. “If you don’t see any place to spend it then this group needs to be putting that on other priorities and I think we need to be putting it on other priorities within this region.”

Williford, who was at the same TAC meeting, said it also helps the city when it has a good working relationship with the county.

“They’re the reason why we were able to move forward with this,” Williford said. “Pollock Road Bridge was a big deal for both of our entities.”

The other project is much smaller in scope and will be part of a Department of Natural Resources (DNR) stormwater grant through the federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA). That project is one of several and the hope is to start construction on that project this year with it finishing up by next spring. That project is also on Pollock Road near the MMA campus.

There are two separate grants for the projects. One grant requires a 21 percent match by the city and the other grant calls for a $1 match by the city.