The Wabash Memorial Bridge (''Wabash Memorial Toll Bridge'' in INDOT documents) carries vehicular traffic across the

Wabash River The Wabash River (French: Ouabache) is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed May 13, 2011 river that drains most of the state of Indiana in the United States. It flows from ...

between

Indiana State Road 62 State Road 62 (SR 62) in the U.S. state of Indiana is an east–west route that travels from the Illinois state line in the southwest corner of Indiana to the Louisville, Kentucky area, then northeast toward the Cincinnati, Ohio ...

and

Illinois Route 141 Illinois Route 141 is an east–west state road in southeastern Illinois. It runs from U.S. Route 45 west of Omaha to the Wabash Memorial Bridge over the Wabash River into Indiana. The bridge is also the western terminus of State Road 62. T ...

. The , two-lane bridge is located in both

Posey County, Indiana Posey County is the southernmost, southwesternmost, and westernmost county in the U.S. state of Indiana. Its southern border is formed by the Ohio River, and its western border by the Wabash River, a tributary to the Ohio. As of 2010, the popul ...

, and

White County, Illinois White County is a county located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2020 census, it had a population of 13,877. Its county seat is Carmi. It is located in the southern portion of Illinois known locally as " Little Egypt". Histo ...

. The bridge is operated by the

Indiana Department of Transportation The Indiana Department of Transportation (INDOT) is a governmental agency of the U.S. state of Indiana charged with maintaining and regulating transportation and transportation related infrastructure such as state owned airports, state highways a ...

(INDOT). The bridge was built in 1956 and has an estimated life of 75 years. It is the southernmost span connecting Illinois and Indiana, with the next bridge to the north located 20 miles north in

New Harmony, Indiana New Harmony is a historic town on the Wabash River in Harmony Township, Posey County, Indiana. It lies north of Mount Vernon, the county seat, and is part of the Evansville metropolitan area. The town's population was 789 at the 2010 census. ...

, but the next drivable bridge is on

Interstate 64 Interstate 64 (I-64) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Eastern United States. Its western terminus is at I-70, U.S. Route 40 (US 40), and US 61 in Wentzville, Missouri. Its eastern terminus is at an interchang ...

, located about 35 miles to the north, near Griffin. Effective January 1, 2011, through June 30, 2014, INDOT adopted an electronic toll collection system for the bridge, with users being required to obtain a transponder in order to legally use the bridge.Wabash Memorial Toll Bridge Frequently Asked Questions
accessed May 23, 2013 The automated toll collection system, called ''Wabash Pass'', cost $900,000. Tolls were 50 cents for cars, 30 cents for motorcycles or bicycles, and $1.70 for six-axle trucks. The last toll increase was in 1984. Customers pre-paid their tolls on-line or over the telephone using an

e-check Electronic funds transfer (EFT) is the electronic transfer of money from one bank account to another, either within a single financial institution or across multiple institutions, via computer-based systems, without the direct intervention of b ...

, debit card or

credit card A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...

. Each driver had to have a windshield decal that contained a

transponder In telecommunications, a transponder is a device that, upon receiving a signal, emits a different signal in response. The term is a blend of ''transmitter'' and ''responder''. In air navigation or radio frequency identification, a flight trans ...

circuit associated with the driver's account. Over 7,000 of the

ISO ISO is the most common abbreviation for the International Organization for Standardization. ISO or Iso may also refer to: Business and finance * Iso (supermarket), a chain of Danish supermarkets incorporated into the SuperBest chain in 2007 * Iso ...

18000 6C sticker tag transponders from Federal Signal/Sirit were issued. Effective July 1, 2014, the State of Indiana discontinued tolls on the Wabash Memorial Bridge. Other than the

Indiana Toll Road The Indiana Toll Road, officially the Indiana East–West Toll Road, is a tolled freeway that runs for east–west across northern Indiana from the Illinois state line to the Ohio state line. It has been advertised as the "Main Street of the ...

, it was the last state-owned toll bridge with tolls collected in Indiana (the one other toll bridge, the New Harmony Toll Bridge, was closed to automobile traffic on May 21, 2012). The bridge has an average daily traffic of 4,000 vehicles. The Cannonball Bridge across the Wabash River at St. Francisville, Illinois, a different bridge about 60 miles upstream, continues to collect tolls. In a $1.67 million resurfacing of the bridge, the contractors used

hydrojet A pump-jet, hydrojet, or water jet is a marine system that produces a jet of water for propulsion. The mechanical arrangement may be a ducted propeller (axial-flow pump), a centrifugal pump, or a mixed flow pump which is a combination of both ...

demolition instead of

jackhammer A jackhammer (pneumatic drill or demolition hammer in British English) is a pneumatic or electro-mechanical tool that combines a hammer directly with a chisel. It was invented by William Mcreavy, who then sold the patent to Charles Brady King ...

ing to remove a layer of the existing concrete surface. As a result, the project was completed in four months. The bridge remained open to one lane of traffic throughout the construction.

External links

Official website

References

{{Reflist Road bridges in Illinois Buildings and structures in White County, Illinois Transportation buildings and structures in Posey County, Indiana Road bridges in Indiana Wabash River Former toll bridges in Illinois Former toll bridges in Indiana Cantilever bridges in the United States