The lost bridge: Why is a disassembled highway bridge lying in a Grandview park?

By Tony Madden

A nearly century-old bridge has been lying disassembled alongside the Little Blue River Trail on Byars Road in Grandview since 2015, according to the city. The historic bridge, built in 1933, spanned the Blue River on Highway 40 in Kansas City until 2015.

The city of Grandview owns two historic bridges it intends to reuse as pedestrian crossings. The disassembled Highway 40 bridge along the Little Blue River Trail is not the same bridge that Grandview is reassembling on the Harry S Truman Presidential Trail. That project, approved this spring, involves a historic Bailey bridge that once served as the Kenneth Road crossing into Kansas.

Instead, the disassembled Highway 40 Bridge has connections to a city project that fell through 11 years ago, according to Grandview Communications Director Valarie Poindexter. The project sought to connect two Grandview trail systems — the Little Blue River and Tails & Trails Dog Park trails — which are separated by the Little Blue River.

However, insufficient grant funding prevented the city from ever reassembling the bridge and connecting the trails, Poindexter said. As a result, the bridge has remained in storage along the Little Blue River Trail for 11 years. Grandview city staff intend to keep it there until funds become available to reerect the bridge, she added.

Federal law requires any state proposing replacement of a historic bridge with federal funds must first make the old bridge available for donation to a state, city or other entity. When the old bridge became available in 2015, Grandview took possession of it. Poindexter also said a $160,000 Federal Highway Transportation Alternatives (with 20% local match) paid for the disassembly and relocation of the bridge to Grandview that year. 

The city planned to use two more grants to reassemble the Highway 40 bridge over the Little Blue River. The grants, from the federal Transportation Alternatives and Recreational Trails programs, added up to $443,143.48.

However, the city received just one bid to reassemble the bridge in 2018, and it was high above original estimates for the project. The $1.4 million bid to connect the two trails using the bridge was ultimately rejected because it exceeded the available grant funds. 

By 2020, Grandview had notified MoDOT the project was canceled. The remaining grant funds were ultimately returned. 

“Despite our best efforts to negotiate the price, it was eventually decided not to move forward with the project at that time,” Poindexter said in an email.

Poindexter added that in today’s money, about $2 million is needed to re-erect the bridge and connect the two trails.

“Until these funds are available, or City staff is directed otherwise, the bridge will remain neatly stacked along the Little Blue Trail,” Poindexter said in an email.