LOUISIANA, Mo. — The Missouri Department of Transportation’s new Champ Clark Bridge, which carries U.S. Route 54 over the Mississippi River at Louisiana, has won two awards for excellence – a regional award in the America’s Transportation Awards competition in the “Quality of Life/Community Development, Medium Project” category and a National Award of Merit from the Design-Build Institute of America.

The $60 million project opened to traffic in August 2019. Massman Construction Company was the contractor on the project, with HNTB providing design services.

Sponsored by AASHTO, AAA, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the America’s Transportation Awards competition was created to showcase the tremendous projects delivered by state departments of transportation every year in order to tell the broader story on the importance of transportation. Now in its 13th year, the projects nominated in this competition are making communities stronger, the economy more efficient, and American quality of life better, all while utilizing the most innovative technology to get these projects done better and faster.

This year, 36 state transportation departments participated in the competition, nominating 79 projects in one of three categories: “Quality of Life/Community Development,” “Best Use of Technology & Innovation,” and “Operations Excellence.” Each category is also designated by budget size: small (less than $25 million), medium ($25 million to $200 million) and large (more than $200 million). In the Midwest region, seven states nominated 17 projects, and the winning projects came from Missouri, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Ohio.

As a regional winner, the Champ Clark Bridge will be considered for inclusion into the competition’s “Top 12,” which will be announced later this month. These 12 projects compete for two top prizes—the Grand Prize, chosen by AASHTO’s independent panel of judges, and the People’s Choice Award, which is determined by the public through online voting. Both carry a $10,000 cash prize to support a transportation-related scholarship or charitable cause and will be announced at the AASHTO Annual Meeting in November.

MoDOT has won 12 regional ATA awards since 2010 and won the 2010 Grand Prize for The New I-64 project and the 2013 People’s Choice Award for the Safe & Sound Bridge Improvement Program.

The Champ Clark Bridge was one of four transportation projects to receive merit awards from the DBIA.

Projects were also cited in the areas of aviation, civic/assembly, commercial/office, educational facilities, federal/state/county/municipal, healthcare facilities, industrial/process/research facilities, rehabilitation/renovation/restoration and water/wastewater. In all, 37 merit awards were given.

These merit award winners will now compete for a National Award of Excellence and Project of the Year to be announced at DBIA’s Design-Build Conference and Expo Awards Ceremony, Oct. 29, in National Harbor, Maryland.