The I-94 connection between Minneapolis and St. Paul was grossly under capacity by the late 1980's. MN-DOT put a project in its work queue to reconstruct I-94, but it would be the mid-1990's before that project would be funded and ready to go. Public outcry did not let up as the traffic got worse, so MN-DOT proposed an innovative stop-gap project called Add-A-Lane. Over four weekends in the early 1990's, MN-DOT brought in contractors to work the entire weekend to move curbs, fill in missing roadway, move guard rails, and otherwise make room to paint a 3rd through lane on I-94. The project essentially added 50% to the highway capacity in one month.

The reconstruction project was eventually completed in the mid-1990's. Part of that project was to rebuild the Dartmouth bridge, making it wider and adding auxiliary lanes and shoulders. The bridge was built so much like the mainline of the freeway that you hardly notice that you are crossing one of the major waterways of the world.

The Dartmouth Bridge became the primary detour route for I-35W following the collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River Crossing in August of 2007. To accomodate the increase in traffic, I-94 was modified to support 4 through lanes of traffic between I-35W and MN-280. The result is that the Dartmouth Bridge was repainted to have 4 through lanes and one auxiliary lane in each direction. That project all but eliminated the shoulders and created lanes that are a little narrower than we might otherwise be used to. It will be interesting to see if this configuration is maintained after the new I-35W bridge is opened, or if the 4 through lanes becomes permanent.