The Illinois Department of Transportation announced today that the work previously planned to start in August on the Martin Luther King Jr. Bridge has been postponed.

“Martin Luther King Bridge from Lacledes Landing, Sep 2012” / Photo by Mitchell Schultheis, Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

The bid submitted to rehabilitate the bridge deck was considerably higher than IDOT had budgeted. The planned work will be revised and the work put out for bid later this year, the agency noted in a release.

The work, which will require the bridge to be entirely closed, is being coordinated with the work by the Missouri Department of Transportation on the Poplar Street Bridge to minimize the traffic impact. IDOT anticipates the closure will now take place in the summer of 2015.