Louisville Bridges Project Discussion (Covington, Paris: neighborhoods, construction, cabinet)

[EclecticEars]

I'll admit that it's strange that yours truly, of all posters, would post this. I'll even suggest that this become a sticky since this project will finally (!!!!!) soon be underway and dramatically change the Louisville skyline.

The old Kennedy bridge would be basically rehabilitated to accommodate six lanes in one direction. A parallel bridge would accommodate six lanes in the opposite direction. An aging and decrepit Spaghetti Junction, where I-65, I-71, I-64, Mellwood Avenue, and 3rd Street all have some junction, will have to be completely reconstructed.

This is the article from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet: News & Events

Design-Build Team Finalists Selected4/23/2012

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (April 23, 2012) – Three teams of bridge- and road-building professionals have been selected by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) as finalists for a contract to build a new Interstate 65 bridge over the Ohio River in downtown Louisville and rebuild the interstate connections in both Kentucky and Southern Indiana.

A team of evaluators from the Transportation Cabinet scored each of five contending Design-Build Teams (DBTs) after two weeks of interviews and reviews of previous projects undertaken by the teams or their personnel.

The finalist DBTs announced today are:

• Ohio River Transportation Constructors, a joint venture of Kiewit Infrastructure Co., Traylor Brothers Inc., Kokosing Construction Co. Inc., and Massman Construction Co.
• Skanska, Flatiron, Dragados USA
• Walsh Construction Company

Selection criteria included proven experience, innovative ideas, inclusion of minorities and women in the workforce and ability to deliver the best value on schedule.

The teams will spend the summer developing specific proposals that will include innovative concepts, technical designs and cost details.

The schedule calls for the winning team to be selected in October, allowing preliminary construction work to begin before year’s end. The massive construction project – which includes a new downtown I-65 bridge, overhauling the existing Kennedy Bridge, rebuilding the downtown Louisville interchange and new interstate connections in southern Indiana – is scheduled for completion on or before June 2018.

“Now that we have the necessary authorization, the Transportation Cabinet and the design-build teams are ready to move forward with the procurement process,” KYTC Secretary Mike Hancock said.

They've been talking about this since the early 1990s, so who thinks this will reeeeeally be done by 2018?! Nonetheless, this is great news.

Now if only they could do the same thing in Covington on the Brent Spence Bridge.

[The Dissenter]

From someone who lived in the DC area with the I-95/Woodrow Wilson Bridge reconstruction the closures and lane changes are going to be murder to deal with but once done it will make traffic flow majorly improved.

[Orgetorix]

It's a backward-thinking, regressive, foolish approach to cross-river mobility, at least in its current form.

Nobody disputes that an east end bridge is needed - it's been in the works for 25 years. The additional downtown bridge, though, is an unnecessary red herring thrown into the works by Louisville's old-money East End elite who have never wanted the east end bridge and its approach built through their back yards. They've been successful in delaying it for years by convincing everyone another downtown bridge is needed, and getting the Drumanard Estate designated a historic property so it has to be tunneled under, both of which have raised the price tag for the project tenfold.

Traffic studies have shown that traffic on the Kennedy Bridge has actually declined in the last decade, even without an east end bridge in place to absorb some of the load it currently bears.

Forward-thinking, progressive cities today are tearing down urban freeways that blight neighborhoods and waterfronts. Not covering up more of the city with overpasses, approaches, and ramps. Portland, San Francisco, New York, Boston, Seoul, Paris, and others have all realized the huge benefits in livability that come with removing urban freeways.

If you hadn't guessed already, I'm a fan of the 86-64 solution: Build the East End bridge (preferably without the tunnel, to keep costs down), re-route I-64 across it through Indiana, reduce the footprint of Spaghetti Junction, and replace the waterfront portion of current I-64 from the Kennedy Bridge to 22nd Street with a surface-level boulevard that would open up the city's access to the river and make it a much more pleasant place to be.

When I moved to the city five years ago, I saw the 86-64 stickers on the cars of liberals and hippies around town and dismissed it as some kind of pie-in-the-sky fantasy. But then I actually read about it and realized what a great idea it is.