February 14, 201114 yr Ohio River Bridges Project update Bridges & Tunnels, February 14, 2011 The Ohio River Bridges Project, consisting of two new Ohio River crossings and a reconstructed Spaghetti Junction, has been in the planning process for nearly a decade. The project includes, * The Downtown Bridge, a planned Interstate 65 northbound-only span connecting Louisville, Kentucky to Jeffersonville, Indiana spanning the Ohio River as part of the Ohio River Bridges Project. Once complete, the existing Kennedy Bridge will be re-designated for Interstate 65 south. * The East End Bridge, a proposed highway crossing over the Ohio River northeast of Louisville, Kentucky. The bridge would connect the Gene Snyder Freeway/Kentucky State Route 841 in Kentucky to the Lee Hamilton Highway/Indiana State Route 265 in Indiana, and be designated as Interstate 265 once the freeway is completed. The proposal also features a tunnel under the historic Drumanard Estate, a reconstructed Indiana State Route 62 diverging diamond interchange, and a reconfigured U.S. Route 42 interchange. * A reconstructed Spaghetti Junction interchange, which consists of ramps for Interstates 64, 65 and 71 in the Butchertown district of Louisville. 1 Downtown Bridge rendering 2 Drumanard Estate tunnel and U.S. Route 42 interchange 3 East End Bridge Click through to view the rest of the article.
June 11, 201213 yr $400 million plan to cap Interstate 5, connect Rose Quarter and Lloyd District moves forward A stakeholder’s advisory committee voted 13-3 Thursday, with two undecideds, to approve a draft of a $400 million plan to improve surface streets, widen Interstate 5 and cap the freeway around Portland’s Rose Quarter. The N/NE Quadrant and Broadway/Weidler Plans are a joint project of the State of Oregon Department of Transportation and the City of Portland. If funded the project would widen the shoulders of I-5 and add two new through lanes along a section from Interstate-405 to Interstate-84. Streets around the Rose Quarter would be configured to improve traffic flow. The overpass at North Flint Avenue would be removed while pedestrians and bicyclists would be channeled into new raised paths and a dedicated bridge across the freeway at Northeast Clackamas Street. A lid over the freeway, similar to the one in downtown Seattle, would stretch over I-5 from Northeast Broadway Street to Northeast Weidler Street. A committee of advisors representing local neighborhoods, the Lloyd District and businesses like UPS have been deliberating on the plan for two years. “I-5 has been a huge divide in this community for too long,” said committee member Justin Zeulner of Portland Arena Management. Zeulner said the freeway lid and new bike and pedestrian bridge would help connect Lloyd District with the Rose Quarter and the riverfront. “This is critical for the future of our community.” According to the state, the section of I-5 between the I-405 Bridge and the I-84 interchanges is the most accident-prone stretch of road in the state.
June 11, 201213 yr Interesting comment coming from the people of Portland. "A real City would be working, and planning, to expand their freeway systems, and road capacity, to accommodate its economic opportunity - while Portland continues to hinder economic development, by wasting money on Trolley's, Light Rail, Greenways, and bike infrastructure with the goal of limiting, and curbing economic opportunity. I5, I205, I405 and I84 should be 6-8 lanes minimum in each direction through Portland, and highways need to be expanded INCLUDING Hwy 26 east to Gresham."
June 11, 201213 yr ^Just like all those highways in West Virginia that turned it into an economic powerhouse. NOT
June 12, 201213 yr ^^ Seems a strange comment for a project that is primarily a lane expansion and anti-congestion measure.
December 20, 201311 yr http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/20/us/under-seattle-a-big-object-blocks-bertha-what-is-it.html?_r=0 "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
December 20, 201311 yr Interesting! I've visited this work site twice already in the past 3 months, and all I've ever heard of were only labor disputes/delays. This takes the project to another level of hurdles especially if it's historically related. We've heard about these historical problems in Rome and London when they do subway digging work...but Seattle? I'm guessing it's more glacier related, but I'll be keeping an eye on this one for sure.
December 20, 201311 yr Interesting, but I'd bet it's just a giant rock. There isn't anything man made that is going to stop that thing. Unless someone buried a giant steel ball bearing. But why would anyone build a ball bearing that big? And if you did, wouldn't you show it off to the world instead of burying it? I want these questions answered!
December 20, 201311 yr ^ :clap: "It's just fate, as usual, keeping its bargain and screwing us in the fine print..." - John Crichton
July 17, 20159 yr There's a new schedule for the tunnel: http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/Viaduct/Contents/Item/Display/2344 Tunneling will resume in November 2015 (almost two years of downtime!) and the tunnel is expected to be completed in spring 2018.
April 4, 20178 yr Bertha is expected to break through today! So they are on track to open to traffic by Spring 2018.
May 23, 20178 yr Louisville Spent $2.4 Billion on New Bridges While Traffic Fell Sharply Massive expense, big tolls, fewer cars than ever. Even if way down the road these bridges fill up, this project is a financial boondoggle of epic proportions. Since the new (tolled) bridges opened, traffic is down 46% compared to pre-toll levels.
May 24, 20178 yr Well, seeing how there is a free bridge literally next door to it + I-64 bridge not that far away from downtown, why wouldn't traffic go down? "You don't just walk into a bar and mix it up by calling a girl fat" - buildingcincinnati speaking about new forumers
May 24, 20178 yr They need to do a study about jobs and if more people will stay in their state for work. This will happen to the BSB as well if all the rest of the bridges are not tolled.
June 28, 20177 yr I drove both new bridges and the tunnel this past weekend. They were totally deserted, as you can see with your own eyes. Eagerly awaiting my bill in the mail. Strange use of signs: I scared everyone away, apparently: Nobody around:
June 28, 20177 yr Drove this way over memorial day weekend, even stranger than the emptiness was the amount of people recreating on the path/sidewalk along the bridge.
June 28, 20177 yr Wait, I thought this was an interstate? Why are they using the little turn arrows typical of a local road? Are those denoting which lanes exit? That's so odd...
June 28, 20177 yr Drove this way over memorial day weekend, even stranger than the emptiness was the amount of people recreating on the path/sidewalk along the bridge. Yeah, far more people walking, jogging, and biking across the bridge than crossing it in a vehicle. Also, the old railroad bridge that has been converted for pedestrian use downtown looked packed.
June 28, 20177 yr Isn't the new east side bridge "Future I-265" since it connects the Indiana and Kentucky portions of I-265? It would seem dumb to not have the bridge itself be part of I-265 unless they can't do that because of the tolls for some reason.
June 28, 20177 yr I have to wonder if a huge amount of the bridge structure and overall expense was caused by the desire to have access to the Indiana riverfront. Widening these bridges by 1 or 2 lanes to create approaches for ramps costs hundreds of millions of dollars since each cross member must be significantly more robust. As we have noted repeatedly in the Brent Spence discussion, so much of the current "problem" and the expense of the solution to that problem is access to the Covington waterfront. Simply closing those ramps would eliminate much of the weaving traffic pattern that occurs on the bridge.
July 18, 20177 yr http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/local/2017/07/18/early-tolling-revenue-passes-projections-spring-riverlink-crossings-jump-13-percent/487361001/ Tolling on the three Ohio River bridges has generated a little more than $38 million through the first half of 2017, slightly ahead of pre-opening projections. RiverLink, the electronic bridge-monitoring network, recorded 7.86 million crossings between April 1 and June 31 — a 13 percent increase over the first three months since the bridge opened, according to data released Tuesday. -- It also looks like traffic is up to 88,000 VPD. The study called for 110,000 or so by 2018. It could be hitting 100,000 by the end of the year.
July 18, 20177 yr Well it has been nearly a month and I still haven't received a bill from the toll bridges.
July 18, 20177 yr I've not gotten a bill and it was memorial day when I passed through. Only other experience was a toll road by Toronto which took about 3 months to show up.
September 5, 20177 yr Looks like the Bill By Plate notices from Texas that I received, too. I just came back from Massachusetts and took their Turnpike. All of the toll booths have been removed - they were using a ticket based system so you would pay by mileage. It's been replaced by an all electronic tolling (AET) system like RiverLink, and instead of AET gantries at every exit, it's just on the mainline at regular intervals. The tolls in the western part of the state were cheap, like 25 cents, increasing to a dollar or so as you went towards Boston. I can't wait until more of the bridges in the NYC area go to AET. The Throgs Neck Bridge/I-295 is one of the quickest ways to get to Long Island but it's bogged down by a toll plaza that has some slow 5 MPH EZ-Pass lanes with physical barriers. (Good luck if your transponder malfunctions - they have to manually come out and take your plate number and etc.) This is being replaced with AET by later this year which should resolve a big choke point.
September 6, 20177 yr Quick anecdote that shows how cheap license place recognition has become... The last couple of days I was in Vegas staying at one of the casinos on the strip. The first day that I entered the parking garage, I had to insert my room key and then it recognized me as a hotel guest and lifted the gate. However, for the rest of the trip, every time I entered or exited the garage, all I had to do was pull up to the gate and it would lift immediately. So clearly they had some type of system that recorded my license plate number when I inserted my room key, and then recognized it for the duration of my stay. It did make entering/exiting the garage much quicker, so I can see why this would be good technology for garages that move a high volume of cars. However what this shows is that license plate recognition technology — not only the cameras but the backend systems that match your license plate to your identity and authenticate you — has gotten very cheap. At first we only saw this technology in places that were willing to pay a significant amount for it, like bridge tolling and in cop cars. Now it's made its way to hotel parking garages.
September 6, 20177 yr I like the motion sensors that detect if a parking space is available. It is either a red LED light or a green LED light above a space, which is tied to a counter at the front of the parking garage. If there are 2 parking spots available and 2 vehicles are inside finding parking, then the counter will display "FULL." I guess it's not that technologically advanced but it is incredibly helpful, especially at Easton in Columbus. The license plate readers take it a next step above.
November 7, 20177 yr Has anyone seen recent numbers on how these new bridges are doing? Are they still way under estimated traffic levels?
November 9, 20177 yr Musk claims that he's going to dig a 17-mile tunnel in the next "year or so" between LAX and the 405. I'm so sick of this guy: https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/31/elon-musk-boring-company-tunnel-should-be-17-miles-long-in-a-year.html?recirc=taboolainternal
January 10, 20196 yr <ron_paul_its_happening.gif> The end of the viaduct is finally here. Starting tomorrow, SR 99 will close and work will begin on the new ramps that connect SR 99 to the new tunnel. About three weeks later, the ramps will be finished and the new tunnel will open. It will take several months to demolish the viaduct. During the three week period when the highway is closed, the transit agencies will run extra buses. There has been an effort to install temporary bus-only lanes on city streets and HOV lanes on highways to discourage solo drivers. Unfortunately they will not be able to run any extra light rail trains because Link is already operating at maximum capacity.
January 10, 20196 yr 23 minutes ago, taestell said: <ron_paul_its_happening.gif> The end of the viaduct is finally here. Starting tomorrow, SR 99 will close and work will begin on the new ramps that connect SR 99 to the new tunnel. About three weeks later, the ramps will be finished and the new tunnel will open. It will take several months to demolish the viaduct. During the three week period when the highway is closed, the transit agencies will run extra buses. There has been an effort to install temporary bus-only lanes on city streets and HOV lanes on highways to discourage solo drivers. Unfortunately they will not be able to run any extra light rail trains because Link is already operating at maximum capacity. Now do this to the Shoreway in Cleveland!
May 16, 20196 yr The rubble created by viaduct demolition is being crushed and used to fill the Battery Street Tunnel, a short tunnel that was bypassed once the new tunnel opened:
May 17, 20196 yr Wow, I used to ride across the AWV every other day when I live there. The Viaduct was iconic in Seattle.
September 24, 20195 yr Demolition is now complete and WSDOT has put together this great video explaining all the steps of the demolition project. Skip to 5:56 for the dramatic before-and-after shots.
March 28, 20241 yr "In the souls of the people the grapes of wrath are filling and growing heavy, growing heavy for the vintage." -- John Steinbeck
April 7, 20241 yr sea states driving is not for amateurs — 🙀 https://www.instagram.com/reel/C4QPddivNB8/?igsh=OWpoZXFoeHIycGM4
April 10, 20241 yr whoa -- beware the barnacle !! 😂 Is the ‘Barnacle’ the NYPD’s answer to stopping parking scofflaws in their tracks? By Ben Brachfeld Posted on April 9, 2024 New York City parking scofflaws are feeling the long, clingy arm of the law. The NYPD has deployed a new weapon designed to immobilize the vehicles of parking scofflaws: the “Barnacle,” a rectangular device that sticks to the windshield with such force that it’s been compared to the tiny crustaceans known to cling to ship bottoms. more: https://www.amny.com/transit/nypd-barnacle-windshield-parking-scofflaws/ The NYPD has started deploying “barnacle” windshield boots to attach to scofflaws’ vehicles.NYPD Transport via X
June 11, 20241 yr parking in tokyo is next level — 🤖 https://www.instagram.com/reel/C66vzqTSf7V/?igsh=MWZ4OHlwcnl3NzY2ZQ==
August 29, 2024Aug 29 the guy who got fed up and changed a highway sign on the 110 in los angeles — https://www.instagram.com/reel/C-8Gr_7P9j4/?igsh=ZGM1ZWY5aHBzNGd6
September 19, 2024Sep 19 just another day druving in florida — 😱 https://www.instagram.com/reel/C_1gVzSxp0A/?igsh=MWpqMm1zNG5xeDF5Zg==
September 30, 2024Sep 30 WSDOT is nearing completion of a highway cap in the Montlake neighborhood of Seattle. In addition to some green space, the cap features a new busway with a direct connection to SR 520, speeding up buses that previously shared the highway exit with other motor vehicles. This is one of several highway cap projects under construction in the Seattle area now. It's a shame that ODOT, which seems to have infinite money to spend on highways, isn't building caps like this in various Ohio cities.
September 30, 2024Sep 30 Just one more lane, or tunnel, will fix the 401 in Toronto..... Quote The Ministry of Transportation will look at the potential for a tunnel running from Brampton or Mississauga in the west to Scarborough or Markham in the east that connects to major roads along the way, Ford said. That's a distance of roughly 55 kilometres. The tunnel would not be tolled and would include public transit, according to the province. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/highway-401-tunnel-traffic-gridlock-ford-1.7333341
October 21, 2024Oct 21 hello dhaka traffic — https://www.instagram.com/reel/DBP-dD-sNQr/?igsh=MW1hamR0eGduOXJ5Mw==
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