Little Falls Accepts 3.2 Million Dollar Grant For New Bridge

LITTLE FALLS (WJON News) -- The City of Little Falls hopes to alleviate a long-standing traffic concern in the coming years. At Monday night's city council meeting the council approved accepting a $3.2 million dollar grant from the Federal Railroad Administration to help with the construction of a new bridge that would go over the Mississippi River and the railroad tracks on the west side of town.

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Mayor Greg Zylka says emergency vehicles can have to wait as long as 15 minutes if a train is going by or have to take a lengthy detour:

"That's just too long of a delay in an emergency and I'm not blaming the railroad they've got their job to do also but it's just a situation where we would like it to be somewhat like Sauk Rapids where they got that bridge built over the railroad track."

The grant requires a 20% match but the Minnesota Department of Transportation is willing to contribute the $800,000 match requirement for the project. Zylka says they have been working on getting a new bridge for about 5 years already and there is still a long road to travel to get the new bridge built:

"Where we go from here is continued planning, looking for more dollars and then the next step after that would be implementation and we're excited about it, to be at this point, that our railroad has participated with this grant."

He says they have had several public meetings already and the city has received nothing but positive feedback.

He says it will be about another five years to get the bridge built and an added bonus is the potential for All Aboard Minnesota adding a stop at the old Little Falls railroad depot once the project is completed.

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