(The Center Square) – Still seven years away from expected completion and four years after the project was included in the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, Ohio and Kentucky officials unveiled the design of the Brent Spence Bridge on Wednesday.
The 8-mile Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project in Cincinnati and northern Kentucky will replace the current bridge that spans the Ohio River connecting Ohio and Kentucky. It’s expected to cost between $3.5 and $4 billion and be able to handle nearly 150,000 vehicles a day.
“As we went through the designs, we wanted this bridge to be cost effective, functional, and safe, but we also wanted it to look good,” Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine said. “This bridge will become an iconic part of the Cincinnati skyline and a landmark gateway that honors our states’ excellence in engineering, transforms the daily commute, and keeps commerce moving.”
The design is a cable-stayed independent deck bridge, using a cable system to support both decks, similar to the Abraham Lincoln Bridge in Louisville and the Veterans Glass City Skyway in Toledo.
No steelwork will connect the two decks.
“The new companion bridge will be a game-changer for commuting families, and it’ll revolutionize a crucial economic corridor,” Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said. “This is a project that has been dreamed of for years and that many said would never happen. But we are getting it done by working together – and we’re doing it without tolls.”
Northbound drivers crossing the Ohio River from Kentucky into Ohio will use the top level of the new bridge and get an unobstructed view of the Cincinnati skyline and the bridge’s design.
Officials said the design costs less and is easier to build than other options.
The current bridge, designed to carry 85,000 vehicles per day, opened in 1963 with three lanes each way. It was expanded to four in 1985.
The project includes improvements to the existing Brent Spence Bridge for local traffic, redesigned ramps throughout the corridor, new pedestrian and bike paths connecting communities to transit and employment centers and aesthetic improvements designed to create walkable, urban environments.
