Mayor Francis Slay of St. Louis said his city should get more money from the federal stimulus package and thinks other projects like the one in Miller County are not as important.

"This is an insult to the city of St. Louis, a violation of federal law, and I think they're spending this money contrary to the intent of Congress," Slay said.

The bridge replacement is considered the first project to use the federal stimulus money.

The bridge is apart of Highway 17 in Miller County, right outside Tuscumbia and is 75 years old. As trucks and cars drive over the bridge, it's possible to see flakes of cement fall off.

Layne Helton's company is one of the sub-contractors helping with the project. He's lived near the bridge all of his life.

Helton said the bridge is in disrepair. 

"Last year they had to prop this up... see all that steel underneath there, that had actually dropped about two inches and slid that away about two inches," Helton said about a support that was slipping. "Now they jacked that back up and put that steel under that see... to hold it up."

The bridge was repaired in August 2008 when MoDOT put steel supports over top a support.

"Last summer they restricted the load limit and had to pull part of the bridge back and jack it back up into place," Helton said. "It was literally falling down."

MoDOT says three other projects were started with the bridge project because they were ready to go when President Obama signed the bill into law.

MoDOT chose the bridge project because all the plans were in place, the state just needed the money to get the project off the ground.

"There will be projects done in St. Louis also, MoDOT was simply starting the projects that were ready to go immediately," Roger Schwartze with MoDOT said.

Helton said the bridge is a huge asset to the county and if the bridge wasn't there, school buses would have to drive more than 30 miles to get from one side of the river to the other.