Batle brewing over bridge in Eastern Iowa

Many famous battles have been fought over bridges, and such is the case in the Quad Cities.Each day, more than 69-thousand vehicles use Interstate 74 on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River. And some government and business people are campaigning for rework of the I-74 corridor in Bettendorf and replacement of the crowded I-74 bridge between Bettendorf and Moline with a larger span. Backers of the plan say it could cost an estimated 400 to 600 million dollars. But DeAnn Soults and others who are against the idea have formed Downtown Bettendorf Business, a group to fight it. Soults, who owns a laundry in downtown Bettendorf, says removal of the present bridge, construction of a new one and revamping the approaches to it would take two years or more. Soults says that would cut off downtown Bettendorf businesses from their customers. She says crowding on the current bridge could easily be decreased if the toll on the Centennial Bridge between Davenport and Rock Island was discontinued.Both sides will present their views Tuesday at a meeting of the Iowa Transportation Commission in Bettendorf.