Construction of the new Brent Spence Bridge, the congested span over the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Kentucky, is one of, if not the most important projects in Ohio in the next decade, leaders say.
Projected traffic volume is expected to reach 233,000 vehicles a day by 2035 on a bridge designed for 80,000. It’s estimated 3 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product crosses it daily, highway officials said.
Ensuring a reliable trucking route is important for the host of distribution centers in Butler County is important, said David Fehr, planning director at the Butler County Department of Development.
“Transportation is key in just about every business these days,” Fehr said. “I-75 and I-70 are both critical for (distribution) business — that project is extremely important for Butler County.”
Originally designed for three, 12-foot wide lanes in each direction in 1963, the double-deck truss span was expanded to accommodate increasing traffic demands in 1985 by eliminating emergency shoulders and narrowing the existing lanes to add another lane in each direction, according to the Ohio Department of Transportation.
The expansion increased capacity by 25 percent from 100,000 vehicles per day to 150,000, but it’s not enough. Almost 30,000 trucks use the bridge per day, according to ODOT.
Creativity needed to fund Brent Spence Bridge project
Aside from the challenges associated with planning and constructing the Brent Spence Bridge project, securing the necessary $2.4 billion in funding is perhaps the greatest challenge officials face.
Of the total sum for the project, the new bridge structure could cost anywhere between $450 million and $670 million, depending on the design of the bridge, according to Stefan Spinosa, the Ohio Department of Transportation’s project manager.
Only about 4 percent of the total, or $90 million, have been secured for the 8-mile long project, according to Spinosa.
“We’ve been relying on traditional highway funding sources, which are federal and state motor fuel tax,” Spinosa said.
Typically for projects of this magnitude, the federal government foots 80 percent of the bill and the state takes care of the rest, according to Spinosa. And with the federal transportation bill scheduled to expire this month, funding remains uncertain.
Construction plan
The need for a new bridge is critical as it was originally designed for 80,000 vehicles per day, Spinosa said. Usage today tops 165,000 and traffic volume is projected to reach 233,000 by 2035.
The project begins just south of Dixie Highway in Northern Kentucky and stretches just north of the Western Hills Viaduct interchange — about 5 miles of work in Kentucky and about 3 miles in Ohio.
“We’re addressing not just the bridge, but the corridor itself — the geometry and the safety conditions,” Spinosa said. “The bridge is basically just in the middle, but it’s the high-cost location because of the river crossing itself.”
The bridge only makes up about 4 percent of the overall project length.
“Everybody focuses on the Brent Spence as just a bridge project, but it’s much more than that.”
Existing issues within the corridor construction will address include the curvature of the roadway, expanding shoulders and the ability for the driver to see well enough ahead in case of emergency. One of the goals is to limit rear-end and side-swipe crashes on the highway.
Some exits are on the left side and others are on the right, which leads to drivers weaving through congested traffic, Spinosa said.
“The traffic moving back and forth between lanes causes some of the safety issues we see and are trying to address.”
Construction plans in Kentucky call for six lanes in each direction and would continue to the new bridge into Ohio — two lanes designated for Interstate 75, two for Interstate 71 and two for local traffic, according to Spinosa.
Northbound traffic will be in the lower deck of the new bridge while five lanes of southbound traffic are designated for the upper deck.
The existing Brent Spence bridge would remain open after construction with two lanes of northbound I-71 traffic on the upper deck and three lanes of local traffic on the lower deck. The two bridges would work hand-in-hand to handle the 2035 projected amount of vehicles.
“(The old bridge) stays in service and does get some rehabilitation work done to it and will be reconfigured, so we get the shoulders back that we don’t have today.” Spinosa said.”
University of Cincinnati professor of civil engineering and a structural engineer, James Swanson, believes the bridge is structurally sound, but functionally obsolete, “... and one might argue that it is unsafe from that point of view.”
“As with any bridge, the older that it gets, the more likely an unexpected failure is to occur. The issue of concrete falling from the upper deck onto the lower deck in June of this year is one example, and the recent unexpected closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge in Louisville is another example.”
That bridge is ailing and is also about 50 years old. It carries Interstate 64 over the Ohio River from Kentucky into Indiana. Similarly to the Brent Spence, it was designed for 80,000 vehicles per day but was shut down after inspectors discovered cracks in steel beams on Sept. 7.
Traffic has since been rerouted over two other bridges connecting southern Indiana to Louisville, lengthening commutes and altering driving habits for thousands.
“That would be devastating if it happened to the Brent Spence bridge, but there is no indication of that,” Spinosa said.
Construction for the Brent Spence Bridge is tentatively scheduled to begin in 2015 lasting through 2022 or 2023.
Bridge design
From a total of 18 different designs, construction and planning officials from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet and ODOT have whittled it down to three.
The first option resembles the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge, or Big Mac bridge, which services Interstate 471 between Northern Kentucky and Ohio.
The open-arch bridge is the cheapest of the three finalists, estimated to cost $570 million, according to Spinosa.
The second option is a cable-stayed bridge with two towers. It is estimated to cost $670 million.
The last option is also a cable-stayed, asymmetrical bridge with one 500-foot tower at a cost of $670 million, too.
“That’s very tall, the tower on that would be nearly as tall as the Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati,” Spinosa said. “It adds to a uniqueness to the city.”
Two public hearings to discuss the proposals are scheduled for February 2012.
Jobs/economy
In his recent address to a joint session of Congress, President Barack Obama emphasized the importance of rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, which was given a “D” rating by the from the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The proposed American Jobs Act, calls for Congress to pass a National Infrastructure Bank capitalized with $10 billion, to leverage private and public capital and to invest in a broad range of infrastructure projects of national and regional significance, “without earmarks or traditional political influence,” Obama said in his address.
“It’s much more than just a transportation project, it’s essentially to the nation’s economy because it services one of the significant traffic arterials connecting North America,” said Hamilton County Commissioner Todd Portune. “You can imagine how much it means to the region — this is the kind of project we need to get behind which will make a meaningful difference in our local economy.”
Contact this reporter at (513) 755-5112 or kelgazzar@coxohio.com.
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