Local officials are optimistic that the Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission will award a contract to build a new Highway 47 Missouri River bridge.There have been concerns since the apparent low bid on the project exceeds the budget projection by more than $10 million.The state highway commission meets next Wednesday, June 8, in Kansas City, and a MoDOT recommendation on the contract is expected to be presented at that time.During their meeting Tuesday, members of the Washington Area Highway Transportation Committee approved a motion to send a letter to elected state and U.S. representatives urging them to support awarding a contract.The apparent low bid, from Alberici Constructors Inc., in at $62,950,000. Three of the seven bids received were over $80 million.The budget projection for the project was under $50 million.“We were all disappointed in the bids,” said Washington Mayor Sandy Lucy, committee member. “Four of them were not too far out of line,” she added.“I’m cautiously optimistic that this will happen,” Lucy said at the meeting.“I think it’s going to get done,” said City Administrator Jim Briggs, who pointed out that $10 million is not that great in the scope of the entire MoDOT budget.“You’re not going to get any better bids,” Briggs remarked.Ray Frankenberg Jr., committee member, said based on what he’s read in engineering and construction journals, a major cost factor on projects these days is the labor market.“I feel it (higher cost) has a lot to do with the labor market,” Frankenberg said. With many experienced workers retiring, “you can’t get the trained workers,” he noted.Brinker said Wagner pointed out at the county committee meeting that a major challenge is getting skilled laborers for major projects like this.Efforts are underway to train new workers, Brinker said, but in many cases many of the newly trained workers don’t have a driver’s license and contractors are challenged with transporting workers to a job site or finding temporary housing for them.Frankenberg offered the motion to draft a letter. He said the city needs to let the commission know that the bridge project is “important to this entire area; it’s important to the citizens.“It would be nice if the commission can hear that before their meeting,” he remarked.Frankenberg also said it would be “awesome” if mayors of other communities that are affected by the bridge would add their voices urging support for awarding the contract. Key FactorsWagner, who was not at Tuesday’s committee meeting, previously said there are three main factors that MoDOT has to consider on this project.One is a $10 million federal TIGER grant the state was awarded last year for the bridge project.A key condition of the grant is that the project be awarded this month.The grant “is a critical item we don’t want to lose,” Wagner remarked.Another factor is the construction bid amounts, and the third is the condition of the existing bridge which was completed in 1936.In 2009, the state completed the last major renovation of the old bridge that was expected to add about 10 years to its lifespan.The new bridge is slated to essentially be completed and opened to traffic by the end of 2018.MoDOT doesn’t want to spend another $10 million on the old bridge which has exceeded its original life-span by several decades, Wagner said previously. Bridge DesignThe project calls for a new 2,560-foot-long bridge to be built just to the west — upstream — from the existing span.The new structure is designed with two 12-foot driving lanes, two 10-foot shoulders and a 10-foot-wide biking/walking path along the west side.Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission