Why were the river bridges built sequentially?
To keep traffic moving across the river, the new bridges are being built sequentially. The new westbound I-494 bridge was built first and traffic was maintained on the original Wakota Bridge. All I-494 traffic was shifted from the original bridge to the new westbound bridge in September 2006. The original bridge has been removed to make room for the new eastbound bridge. The eastbound bridge will take about three years to construct and then eastbound traffic will be moved over to the new eastbound bridge and the project completed.