Preliminary results of a re-evaluation study show that the New Mississippi River Bridge could be built for just over US$900 million, saving US$700 million over the original estimate. Some of the cost savings will come from building the new river bridge with a shorter centre span than originally intended and from narrowing the space between the eastbound and westbound lanes. The intention is to provide the new bridge and associated highways by 2013. URS was commissioned in July to carry out the study for the departments of transportation in Illinois and Missouri. The commission followed the realisation that it would take as long as 15 years to come up with the US$1.6 billion the project was originally estimated to cost.