The Brent Spence Bridge

The Brent Spence Bridge links Cincinnati with northern Kentucky. It is a double-decker truss bridge that carries Interstates 71 and 75 across the Ohio River, connecting Cincinnati and Covington, Kentucky.

It is also a major north-south transport corridor through this part of the world. I-75 carries traffic headed south from Detroit. I-71 links Cincinnati with Cleveland. I-74 carries truck traffic from Indianapolis, and merges with I-75 a short distance north of the bridge. I-75 and I-71 merge at the southbound entrance to the bridge. Heading south, I-75 heads to Lexington, Chattanooga and Atlanta. I-71 carries traffic to Louisville and Nashville.

And there is a lot of truck traffic. There are enough trucks that the American Transportation Research Institute lists it as number 7 on their Top 100 Truck Bottlenecks - 2020 list. Though that may be in part due to the endless maintenance on the highways through Cincinnati that has been going on the past few years.

The photo above is of the Cincinnati Skyline as seen from Kentucky. The bridge in the lower left-hand-corner is the Brent Spence Bridge. Covington, Kentucky is the city on the near shore of the river, with Cincinnati in the background. The 2nd bridge, working left to right, is a railroad bridge. The photo, via WikiMedia Commons, is by Rick Dikeman. Click on the image for a larger view, and more details.

The photo below shows a closer view of the bridge, also as seen from Kentucky. The red brick building on the far shore is the old B & O Freight Terminal in Cincinnati. That image, by Antony-22, was captured in 2018. Click on the image for a larger view and more details at WikiMedia Commons.

On November 11th at just before 3 AM, there was a crash on the lower deck of the bridge. A truck jackknifed and was hit by another truck, which was carrying 110 pounds of potassium hydroxide and a large amount of diesel fuel. The fire burned for 2 hours and was hot enough to deform the steel in part of the bridge and damage concrete of the upper deck. That closed the bridge, and briefly closed the river to barge traffic. While the river has reopened, the bridge remains closed. Well, mostly closed. One lane of the northbound bridge was reopened with reduced speeds, but I don't believe semitrailers are permitted at this time.

Before the accident, more than 150,000 vehicles per day used the bridge.

The background on the bridge and its deteriorating state comes from a source I don't like, but they seem to be complete. The infrastructure disaster nobody is talking about.

Built in 1963 to accommodate three lanes of traffic in each direction on its two decks, engineers in the 1980s decided to eliminate the shoulders and narrow the lanes to 11 feet so that four lanes of traffic can travel in each direction. Drivers experience a harrowing four lanes of heavy traffic at high speed followed by a messy interchange. Such a crash was inevitable (and probably avoidable) on the bridge that federal inspectors have deemed "functionally obsolete" since the 1990s.

"Functionally Obsolete" doesn't refer to its state of maintenance, but the fact that it handles more traffic than it was designed to handle, and it does not have things like shoulders or any way for emergency vehicles to pass traffic in the event of an accident. Though if you look at the larger version of the 2nd photo, you might think that maintenance has been ignored. You would probably not be wrong.

If you look at a map of this part of the world the state line separating Ohio and Kentucky is the river, but it isn't in the middle of the river. It is very close to the Ohio shoreline. This means that Kentucky really owns the bridge, or most of it anyway, and various parts of downstate Kentucky are not excited about paying for what they see as northern Kentucky's bridge. Ohio has a vested interest of course, and there would even be federal dollars available to aid in replacing the bridge, if the region could come up with a funding plan. And while they started buying some property a few years back to prepare for replacement of the bridge, that has been stuck in limbo for a while now.

And it doesn't help that Kentucky, thanks to its insane approach to pensions, is mostly bankrupt, or on the way... State’s generosity in pension benefits now coming home to roost during pandemic

The pension plan for state workers in non-hazardous jobs plummeted from more than 120 percent of the funding levels needed to fulfill its obligations in 1999 to less than 14 percent in 2019.

Marypat of STUMP, thinks that 80% is not a valid funding level, not in 2019, after years of a booming economy. A 14% funding level is insane.

Of course an obvious choice is to make the bridge a toll-bridge. But the usual suspects are upset about that because it will hurt the poor and people of color. I don't know how they will be helped if the bridge is left until it collapses, but then I am not woke.

And so we have another piece of vital infrastructure, that is left to decay.

UPDATE: Brent Spence reopens to traffic. That was 2:30 PM on December 22nd.