The opening of the new St. Croix Crossing Bridge in Stillwater was big news in Minnesota last August. And now, MnDOT has released a timelapse video of what it took to build the structure.

After decades of discussion and disagreement, construction on the new bridge (which was a joint project between MnDOT and the Wisconsin Department of Transportation) that links Minnesota Highway-36 with Wisconsin Highway-64 near Stillwater started back in 2013.

It bridge itself took over 4 years and cost nearly $383 million dollars to build, with another nearly 30 million dollars to build the bridge approaches on both the Minnesota and Wisconsin sides.

My wife and I took a trip up to Stillwater shortly after the bridge opened last August and took a trip across the St. Croix on the new span. It's a pretty cool design, and is very scenic. Plus, it totally got rid of all that congestion that used to clog downtown Stillwater during peak drive times.

And, the old Stillwater Lift Bridge, which the new span replaced, isn't being torn down. The historic bridge, which opened to traffic back in 1931 (!!!) will be converted to a bicycle/pedestrian crossing and will also become part of a five-mile “loop trail” system connecting the new river bridge with the historic bridge.

And, a few weeks ago, MnDOT released this cool timelapse video that shows how the bridge was built. It's pretty cool!

 

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