Metro – Spruce Street Bridge Replacement

The Spruce Street Bridge is located in downtown St. Louis, MO and carries Spruce Street vehicular and pedestrian traffic over the MetroLink light rail system. The bridge lies adjacent to the MetroLink Busch Stadium Station which serves the Stadium, Ballpark Village, and the Westin Hotel. The bridge, which was originally built in 1874 and then partially rebuilt in the 1930’s, had deteriorated to the point it needed to be replaced.

DMA was responsible for providing civil engineering services, surveying/3D scanning, utility coordination, site civil design and maintenance of traffic for this bridge replacement project. We coordinated with numerous utility companies including water, electric, steam, and gas in order to preserve and reroute their utilities as necessary. As part of the project, renovations were also made to MetroLink’s Busch Stadium Station, including new stairs and improved pedestrian access.

The surveying for this projects was completed using ground based 3D Scanning LiDAR. This technique provided extreme data accuracy and increased field safety by eliminating the need for field staff to enter the railroad ROW. This also prevented the need to shutdown track operations.

The bridge demolition and construction occurred over the light rail tracks, and in order to minimize the impact on Metro passengers and commuters, the project was deliberately scheduled for the winter when transit ridership is historically lower and to coincide with the St. Louis Cardinals offseason. Other than the bridge demolition over one weekend in January, MetroLink trains were able to stay in service through downtown St. Louis during the construction project, with only minimal delays or disruptions occurring.