Lansing bridge repairs will lead to detours for a week

Some drivers in the area may have a long round trip if they travel between Wisconsin and Iowa in mid-April. 

The Black Hawk Bridge in Lansing will be shut down for a week starting April 15th, for replacement of some steel portions of the bridge. 

Instead of crossing the Mississippi at Lansing, drivers will have to go about 30 miles out of their way, to the nearest bridges at either La Crosse or Prairie du Chien. 

A similar detour was needed in 1981, when structural flaws in a nearly new bridge at Prairie forced an emergency closing there. 

That shutdown lasted seven months. 

Bridge repairs also forced the closing of the Main Channel Bridge in Winona for two weeks in 2008.