[Drolefille]

St. Louis decided that they were going to completely redo 64/40 because of its age. While I can't remembr if they decided for sure, the options were 3-4 years if they did it in pieces, and 2 years if they just shut the whole thing down. Either way traffic was going to suck, so you might as well go all out. Yeah, people are going to get upset but usually you tell them "we do this or you will die" and they go along with it. Interestingly they'd just worked on all the overpasses on 40 before announcing this. I'm willing to bet they found a few they didn't like.

Also when it comes to bridges, you're not always suck rebuilding a bridge in the same place. Hannibal, MO built a new bridge across the Mississippi some distance away from the old one. That was easier than trying to renovate the old one or completely shut down travel across the river.