President to visit Brent Spence Bridge

[kjbrill]

The President has come and gone but the bridge remains the same. What a total waste of time and money to bring Air Force One and the entourage here to speak from a concrete yard with the BS a distant background.

I keep hearing the figure $2.4 billion to construct a replacement bridge. Granted it was 48 years ago, but the original bridge only cost $10 million. Granted we have had inflation, but 240 times? Even if you say the current bridge is over 2 times undersized, let's be real generous and say 4 times, the cost of a replacement at 60 times over the resized original still seems excessive to me. Sounds like a whole of pork in this deal, but what else is new?

I am willing to bet nothing will physically be done for at least 5 years. In the meantime the current bridge becomes more amd more functionally obsolete. Before any new construction is even started the existing bridge will probably be 3 times over design capacity.

Just what we expect our of our public officials, inept, corrupt, and bearing on the criminal.

[kjbrill]

A little more on the Brent Spence. The original design capacity was 80,000 vehicles a day. Best actual number I can find currently is around 150,000 vehicles a day. But of that, 30,000 are said to be trucks. Now the average interstate truck is equivalent to at least 3 cars, maybe 4. I don't know what the original design mix was calculated to be, but a current 20% truck ratio seems on the high side to me. It is said the JIT (Just-In-Time) manufacturing process has dramatically changed the volume of trucking.

Perhaps more needs to be considered from the view of trucking use of I-75/I-71. I still say build a second parallel bridge next to the existing BS and require all through town I-75 traffic to take it. Restrict the entry/exit ramps in downtown Cincy and the KY side, including hard dividers on the downtown interstate. If you miss the signs, tough luck, you will have to go some distance out of your way. Perhaps consider requiring through town southbound truck traffic on I-71 to get off at I-275 to the North and take the I-75 route. On the KY side require through town trucks going north to stay on I-75 until they can split off at I-275 and go over to I-71. In other words keeps the I-71 truck traffic on the new bridge.

I-275 is just not a reasonable bypass to route truck traffic around town. It is basically not a bypass but a local traffic route which is in itself overloaded. Routing I-71 traffic across the I-471 bridge is also not practical as it will be quickly overloaded. But maybe a new bridge there needs to be considered at the same time as the BS, to route all I-71 traffic through traffic across I-471.

From my persective we need some ideas to reduce that $2.4 billion dollar tag down to something more reasonable.

[Wilson513]

The President must think we are stupid because we live here in fly over country.

Everyone here knows that you could pull the trigger on the bridge and there wouldn't be a shovel dropped for 5 years. And, his insulting remarks implying that the bridge is falling down is just stupid. Its only 45 years old, works fine, just has too much traffic. We all know that. We live here. We know.

And, when it comes up for replacement on the DOT's schedule it will be replaced. What's he want? An earmark to move it up a few years? Guaranteed there is something falling down that should be replaced before our bridge. There's a whole bureaucracy that prioritizes this stuff. He's a complete idiot.

[Crew Chief]

Originally Posted by Wilson513

The President must think we are stupid because we live here in fly over country.

Everyone here knows that you could pull the trigger on the bridge and there wouldn't be a shovel dropped for 5 years. And, his insulting remarks implying that the bridge is falling down is just stupid. Its only 45 years old, works fine, just has too much traffic. We all know that. We live here. We know.

And, when it comes up for replacement on the DOT's schedule it will be replaced. What's he want? An earmark to move it up a few years? Guaranteed there is something falling down that should be replaced before our bridge. There's a whole bureaucracy that prioritizes this stuff. He's a complete idiot.

Nope, Wilson, it's called "Politics as usual". ALL of 'em do it. So why take any of 'em seriously???

[kjbrill]

The fact the BS is at twice its design capacity is a clear indicator that something should have been started before now. The compromising of safety by eliminating the emergency lanes and restriping the bridge for narrower lanes a long time ago was a harbinger plans needed to be started then. And when I say plans, I mean actual plans to get something physically done, not just talking about it. But as usual nothing has been done but hot air.

We need someone to come up with some creative thinking on how to solve this problem, particularly at a $2.4 billion price tag. For that amount, I would expect not only a second bridge to relieve the BS but a second bridge for I-471 to route all I-71 through traffic over it plus lane expansions on I-471 itself. Sure it would be longer and less convenient for I-71 traffic to take I-471 and I-275, but something has to give. Even consider extending I-471 south and then back to I-75/I-71.

If I-71 was rerouted through Cincinnati, than maybe FWW could actually be shut down, filled in or converted to underground parking, and all of the downtown advocates given their due.

[franke01]

Obama came here and shut down the Interstate and cost the Taxpayers hundreds of thousands not to mention a whole lot of inconvenience and exasperation because he is a Political Hack trying to get re-elected.

IMO.

[unusualfire]

Originally Posted by franke01

Obama came here and shut down the Interstate and cost the Taxpayers hundreds of thousands not to mention a whole lot of inconvenience and exasperation because he is a Political Hack trying to get re-elected.

IMO.

This happens when ANY president comes to town. We are not immune it happens in every town they visit.