Timber! Down goes KCK’s 18th St. bridge as officials prep for 2027 replacement
It was midday in Kansas City, Kansas, when residents in the city’s southeast corner heard a loud boom. Within seconds, tons of steel, that for 67 years held together a local bridge, cascaded into the waters of the Kansas River.
The Kansas Department of Transportation oversaw the demolition of the 18th Street Bridge on Thursday afternoon, pushing forward plans for the eventual replacement of a passageway that connects two neighborhoods, Armourdale and Argentine, over the Kaw.
“Update: The bridge has been successfully un-bridged,” the Kansas City, Kansas Fire Department wrote in a Facebook post Friday. “KCK handled the boom like pros.”
The controlled demolition, which officials conducted throughout the afternoon, was a key step in continuing the state’s plans to put an entirely new bridge in its place, something it hopes to complete in 2027. Gov. Laura Kelly announced the $62.6 million replacement project in 2024.
The bridge, which runs north to south and is part of U.S. Highway 69, has seen its share of repairs throughout its lifetime but is now due for a complete replacement due to corrosion and cracking.
The state closed the bridge for repairs about a year after a 2017 inspection revealed that cracking. Those repairs allowed it to temporarily reopen for a few years before being closed again in March 2025.
“However a long-term plan was needed as the bridge was nearing the end of its service life, and maintenance was no longer cost effective,” according to a 2024 news release announcing the replacement plans.
Should all go according to plan, the new bridge will include wider shoulders than the former.
Now that the project is moving forward, construction is estimated to last 24 months, according to the 2024 release.
The project will include additional improvements, like roadway repairs along U.S. 69 and rehabilitation on bridges that run over Ruby Avenue, Metropolitan Avenue and Osage Avenue.
The demolition
Crews working on the bridge used dynamite for the blast. They are now using heavy equipment, like cranes and loaders, to remove debris from the site and below the bridge. “Following a controlled dynamite blast to an isolated segment of a larger bridge structure, the bridge deck fell onto a causeway constructed underneath,” a KDOT spokesperson told The Star.
Demolition of the bridge has been in the works for nearly a year, according to KDOT. Preparations for the actual blast that brought the bridge down have been ongoing since the fall. Site cleanup, depending on weather conditions, will take between four and eight weeks.
Although KCKFD put out a statement advising people that the explosion would be happening Thursday, not all people living and working in the area were informed, said Rob Gray, a resident of Orrick, Missouri, who was working near 14th and Argentine when KDOT blew up the bridge.
“They really didn’t let anybody in the area know that they were gonna be imploding the bridge so when it went off, it rattled all the building and caught everybody off guard,” he wrote in a message to The Star.
