Repairs on an East St. Louis bridge that’s been closed since late April may not be completed until late fall or early winter, according to State Sen. Christopher Belt.

Belt said Region 5 Engineer Kirk H. Brown with the Illinois Department of Transportation told him repair work may not begin until late June or early July because the agency is awaiting a part.

“That bridge is so old it is going to take a while to get the part. They’ve already ordered the part,” Belt, who represents the area, told the BND in a recent interview. “We were told that IDOT looks for it to be completed sometime in the fall, or early winter of this year.

“The bridge will be restored so people can start using the bridge again,” Belt said. “IDOT is really underscoring safety over expediency.”

A vehicle damaged the heavily traveled bridge at 26th Street and Missouri Avenue on April 21, forcing the Illinois Department of Transportation to close it indefinitely over safety concerns. Inspectors found “significant damage to multiple truss members” after the accident, Dawn Johnson, regional communications liaison for Region 5 of the Illinois Department of Transportation, said at the time.

Norfolk Southern railroad tracks run beneath the structure. The bridge closing means residents and others have to navigate around the train tracks. Trains blocking roads have been a long-time issue throughout East St. Louis, frustrating the people who live and work in the city.

Since the bridge closed, residents, businesses and public officials have raised concerns about safety, poor access to their neighborhoods and other issues.

Belt said he is concerned about the impact of the bridge closure on residents and businesses. He asked the transportation agency whether it could open the bridge to small vehicles until repairs were finished.

“I am also thinking about the emergency vehicles that could be necessary for the residents,” Belt said. “That is why I was asking if the bridge could be opened … for smaller vehicles.”

But the engineer said the bridge “is in such disrepair that they have to put safety over anything else,” according to Belt.

Agency workers placed heavy “water barriers” across the road so people couldn’t cross the bridge in its current condition, Belt said.

State transportation officials were not immediately available for comment on this article.

Mashoska Harris is a longtime East St. Louis resident, who is concerned over the closing.

“It’s causing havoc. It’s a major safety issue,” she said. “It’s a major point of egress. For the homes near the viaduct, the bridge closure makes it significantly more difficult for emergency vehicles to access them if there is an emergency. “

She said the extra time it would take for an emergency vehicle to reach someone on the other side of the bridge could “mean someone loses a life.”

She said residents all over East St. Louis have to deal with roads blocked by trains. “Nowhere else in the area is that a daily occurrence over many, many years. … It is a real nightmare for us,” she said.

Told the reason the repairs will take so long, Harris told a BND reporter:” I am pretty sure that bridge is a responsibility of IDOT and is still part of the state,” she said. “ The fact that they had not been upkeeping the bridge in all this time, they should have had parts available.”