District 8 recently celebrated the long-awaited reopening of the Martin Luther King Bridge, which carries traffic between East St. Louis and St. Louis. The work consisted of replacing the section of road and elevated structures leading up to the Martin Luther King Bridge and included a large elevated section that crossed over several railroad tracks as well as the newly relocated Illinois 3, Missouri Avenue and westbound lanes of Interstate 55/64.

The project suffered a lengthy delay due to widespread flooding in the summer of 2019. The massive flooding of the Mississippi River closed several of the railroad lines in northern Illinois, which caused virtually all of the long-distance rail traffic through St. Louis to be rerouted through the MLK project.