Plans for the best way to provide much-needed rehabilitation to the Brent Spence Bridge spanning the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington, Ky., are likely to include tolls whether the bridge is rebuilt or lanes are added to the existing one.
The bridge is located where two major north-south freight arteries — Interstates 71 and 74 — merge to cross the river, then split apart again once they reach the far sides.
A study on how best to alleviate traffic problems on one of the most aged and congested river crossings in America — a bridge President Obama recently referred to as “rotten” — is expected to be completed in April.
Ohio and Kentucky have hired a consultant to prepare the study, which officials said will address what they see as their best option for alleviating the congestion — a bridge project that would be tolled and developed under a public-private partnership.
About 30,000 trucks cross the bridge daily, and about “3% of the nation’s [gross domestic product] crosses over that bridge each day,” according to Steve Faulkner, spokesman for the Ohio Department of Transportation.
When the bridge opened in 1963 it was designed to accommodate 80,000 vehicles a day but now carries about 172,000 a day, a figure expected to jump to 230,000 by 2030, Faulkner said.
Ohio’s Faulkner and Chuck Wolfe, executive director of public affairs for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, said the federal government does allow tolling on new lanes that are added to existing interstate highways.
“We stand by all of our statements that this project cannot be done in the foreseeable future with just traditional revenues,” Wolfe said. “A project of this size has to have unconventional or innovative financing to close the gap,” he said.
In 2011, President Obama — who said the bridge had been labeled “functionally obsolete” — stood at the foot of the Brent Spence asking Congress agree to spend more on road and bridge infrastructure, which he said would create jobs and increase the nation’s economic competitiveness.
