26 minutes ago, BigDipper 80 said:

I'm kind of surprised that vehicles carrying hazardous materials were even allowed over the bridge. As far as I know, all hazardous materials are banned on I-75 between the river and I-275 in Kentucky. If that's the case, someone is going to be in a lot of trouble. 

 

Also you can see why hazmat is banned from tunnels, even short ones like the Lytle Tunnel.  

 

 

2 hours ago, ucgrady said:

I've seen written a few times that even though the crash happened at 2:45am "the bridge was still too hot for crews to inspect it on Wednesday afternoon". I know steel/concrete have a lot of thermal mass, but that must have been really hot to still be "too hot" 12 hours later. 

 

Most likely that's heat from the concrete decks that needed time to radiate away.  The lower deck area probably stayed very hot from heat radiating down from above and up from below.  The steel is mostly hollow riveted box sections and connections, with a couple of bolted connector plates that may have been added later.  It's got a bunch of holes in all those box sections, so the steel would cool down quickly, although that means it would heat up quickly during the fire too. 

 

My armchair analysis is that the upper deck may very well have suffered severe enough damage to warrant replacing a couple of spans.  The overall truss structure for the bridge itself may certainly have suffered damage too, but it's much more out in the open and to the side of where the fire was. That said, the Twitter photo above does show a main cross-brace that connects the two trusses and was right in the line of fire, versus the simpler plate girders that only support the upper deck.  I'm not quite sure how they go about replacing members in trusses this big because of the way the forces interact.  Shoring it up so it doesn't fall apart is much harder than actually cutting out and replacing part of it.  Replacing a horizontal cross-brace should be a lot easier than a main member of either truss though. 

It's really unlikely that there was even superficial damage to anything other than the cross members that support the upper deck and then the much smaller upper deck joists (if that's the correct term).  The only question I really have is how much stability the cross beams add to the structure other than simply supporting the upper deck.  There are horizontal members above the upper deck that primarily stabilize torsional forces and they're a lot more robust (in appearance, at least) than the crossbeams that support the upper deck.  

 

Edited November 12, 20204 yr by jmecklenborg

I feel like I'm living in Idiocracy.  Today I was in Butler County and heard someone on his phone giving the instruction to someone in Kentucky to "go around on 275".  Whoever he was talking to didn't seem to understand that 275 is a bypass and also crosses the Ohio River.  Like get this - you can take 275 in either direction and end up in the same spot I-75 takes you. 

 

I honestly think some people don't understand what rivers are.  They think they're like lakes - like the Ohio River is just what you can see when you're close to downtown Cincinnati.  They don't know that it always flows in one direction. 

 

Anyway, this is going to be another Carmageddon let-down.  The world will keep turning with the bridge out for a few weeks.  

 

Also, I drove down there today and there was absolutely no traffic on I-75 south of the WH Viaduct.  Like everyone's so convinced that there will be traffic that nobody goes there which means there is no traffic.  They really need to cover up the 75S green signs with orange detour stuff, though.   

 

 

 

Edited November 13, 20204 yr by jmecklenborg

Nobody goes there anymore; it's too busy.

9 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

 

Anyway, this is going to be another Carmageddon let-down.  The world will keep turning with the bridge out for a few weeks.  

 

Both yesterday and today took me less than 20 minutes to get from Ft Mitchell to downtown. However, for whatever reason getting back home after 5 is taking over twice as long. Last night it took well over 20 minutes just to get from downtown to the KY border. All the streets at the Banks are closed off leading to the Roebling and everyone is being funneled to either the Taylor Southgate or Clay Wade. At the Taylor Southgate, it ends in a traffic circle that no-one seems to understand, and the Clay Wade ends in a very narrow intersection that trucks can't turn easily because of the giant steel supports from the train tracks above. Once physically across the river it's smooth sailing, but man getting across the river has never been more difficult. 

 

As far as the interstates and semi-truck travel, I agree that this isn't a huge deal, but inside the loop for local commuters it's a huge pain in the ass. 

Just now on 700WLW a caller complained that she doesn't know how she's going to get to Party Source.  I dunno, maybe use the gigantic yellow bridge right next to it.  

 

This comment illustrates why subway construction is so damaging to street-level retail.  People just don't flipping understand what's going on and stay miles away.  

That's why cities that did subways/rail transit early on are so far ahead of ones that waited until the money came back around in the '70s. In the old days people couldn't just hop in their car and drive to the outerbelt to buy stuff. They had to figure out the B&M landscape in their area and not worry about the mules and guys with sledgehammers putting in the subway.

 

6 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

Just now on 700WLW a caller complained that she doesn't know how she's going to get to Party Source.  I dunno, maybe use the gigantic yellow bridge right next to it.  

 

This comment illustrates why subway construction is so damaging to street-level retail.  People just don't flipping understand what's going on and stay miles away.  

She cant use that bridge because it was painted Steelers colors

 

From ODOT District 8:

 

Quote

The Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) is making some routine maintenance improvements during the emergency closure of the Brent Spence Bridge. The bridge closed Wednesday, following a crash and fire that damaged the structure.  ODOT crews are taking advantage of this time to complete other routine work.  

 

“Our managers have been reviewing that area to look for any maintenance improvements, some of which have already started, that can be completed while the bridge is closed,” said ODOT District 8 Highway Management Administrator Doug Gruver. “This allows us to get some needed work done without adding additional impacts to drivers, and keeps our workers safe.”

 

Crews are currently working to clean drains, make pavement repairs, sweep the area, inspect overhead structures, repair highway lighting, clear nearby vegetation, and remove litter. This is an example of ODOT continuing to work for the public and make the most of the current situation.

 

Per Gov. Beshear, the target date for bridge reopening is December 23.

Quote

Repairs to Brent Spence will include removing and replacing a section of the upper concrete deck. The damaged section of lower deck does not require full removal, state officials said. Authorities will take out damaged concrete and fill it in with new material. A few steel beams on the bridge will also be replaced.

It would be really cool if they could also re-paint it while it's closed for over a month. 

8:11am on a Tuesday. The most traveled bridge in the region is down and traffic is pretty much fine. Makes you wonder if we really need to spend $3,000,000,000.00 on a new bridge (that will be parallel to the existing bridge which we are retaining. 

According to Waze, there are 3 ways for me to get to CVG from downtown right now in 27 minutes or less, even with the BSB closed:

• 20 minutes via Taylor-Southgate Bridge/I-75/I-275
• 22 minutes via I-471/I-275
• 27 minutes via US-50/Anderson Ferry

The global pandemic is likely reducing rush hour traffic significantly. 

I feel like this could be a really interesting study on induced demand 

14 minutes ago, ink said:

The global pandemic is likely reducing rush hour traffic significantly. 

Agreed; however, traffic counts pre-pandemic were lower than they were 15 years ago (I'm assuming there was either a large roadwork project around the bridge in 2015 or a sampling error) 

 

I grabbed this screenshot from a video on the BSB website a few years ago. The video claimed that the entire Greater Cincinnati interstate highway network would be ground to a halt by 2017 if the new BSB wasn't built.

 

I also saw an article stating that traffic in June was already at 90% of pre-pandemic levels. I'm sure it's much closer to pre-pandemic levels now than it was in June. By the nature of the traffic lost, I would assume that most of the loss in traffic is rush hour traffic, which makes commutes easier during the pandemic as people work from home. Other traffic has probably returned to near-normal (running errands, long-haul trucking, etc). 

 

So I could see the argument that traffic will go back to what it was pre-pandemic, but is that really that bad? Do we anticipate a significant number of additional people driving in the future? I certainly don't see it.

 

Also, as with the interstate bridge in Louisville, as soon as we add a toll to this bridge, traffic will decrease significantly as people divert to avoid the toll, making the expanded capacity entirely useless. Might as well cut out the middle man, toll the BSB, and use the money to fund repairs.

I'm more intrigued by the significant backups northbound in NKY during the evening rush.  A lot of that is being diverted east on I-275 to I-471 with things jamming up around Taylor Mill and Wilder, but it's opposite the normal commute pattern.  Is this some sort of regular movement of truck traffic?  I regularly see a lot of trucks heading north on I-71 in the evening after 6:00 even prior to this BSB fiasco. 

Like I mentioned up thread, the mornings have been consistently better for some reason, with the afternoon rush hour much worse. But the virus is surging in the region and many  people are also starting to work from home again, even those that had come back in to the office this summer. 

 

Either way I completely agree that a new parallel bridge is a waste. We need to look at how the exit ramps funnel traffic and re-work those. I've said it a million times before but the problem is merging two major interstates at a downtown CBD into one bridge. Send three lanes of 75 to the BSB, and three lanes of 71 to the Big Mac and re-work ramps only, keeping the bridges as is (but with renovated and with new paint). 

Edited November 17, 20204 yr by ucgrady

10% of the BSB bridge's traffic is people traveling from Covington to Newport/Bellevue/Dayton. 

 

Long-haul trucking is a myth.  That's not how most trucking works.  Most of the big semi trailers you see are traveling 50-100 miles, not 1,000.  Virtually everything you ever see on the Brent Spence Bridge originated in or is being delivered to the Cincinnati area.  It IS NOT passing through Cincinnati on its journey between Georgia and Michigan. 

 

Much of the actual long-haul trucking is perishable food.  Durable goods are transported by much slower (and much cheaper) terminal-to-terminal trucking companies.  So while the freight itself might move a long distance, the truck you see is only going from one terminal to another. 

1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said:

10% of the BSB bridge's traffic is people traveling from Covington to Newport/Bellevue/Dayton. 

This is hilariously true. If you live in Mainstrasse and want to go to Kroger, the easiest way (prior to the BSB shutdown) is to cross the BSB, go across FWW and come back into KY on the Big Mac. That's ridiculous on paper, but the east/west connections in NKY suck. 

1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said:

Virtually everything you ever see on the Brent Spence Bridge originated in or is being delivered to the Cincinnati area.  It IS NOT passing through Cincinnati on its journey between Georgia and Michigan. 

Except during the summer when 1 out of 5 cars is from Michigan heading south on vacation. 

10 minutes ago, ucgrady said:

That's ridiculous on paper, but the east/west connections in NKY suck. 

 

The lateral expressway was originally supposed to be on the Kentucky side, not the Cincinnati side.  There was no way to build such an expressway on either side without bulldozing a mile of 19th century buildings...EXCEPT for Central Parkway.  I only saw one drawing of Central Parkway replaced by an expressway, but that was a full loop around downtown including FWW, kind of like Kansas City.  

There are only 2 bridges over the Licking besides I-275 until Visalia.

I hadn't thought of the option of sending I-71 across DCB Bridge. Interesting. That would only involved changing ramps (even if it is just striping) at the east end of FWW, no?

 

Separate from that, let's see if I can add or pass this test of simplifying the issue...

 

NB: 

Kyles Lane merge lane is too short. It creates an AM slowdown at the top of the hill. It needs to be extended .5 mile or all the way to the 12th Street exit. 

5th Street on ramp needs to be eliminated. As noted earlier, it would be replaced by a Texas turnaround that utilizes a fourth lane which is added where the 5th Street ramp is. This would only require a lane to be added between the current 12th Street entrance ramp and the 5th Street entrance ramp.

 

I'm sure there are other ways to eliminate some of the on bridge weaving. The NB weaving? I feel like it is primarily caused by those with NB71 intent trying to use left lanes to avoid the merge delay in the right lanes from 12th and 5th. 

 

 

^Yeah, the I-275 bridge over the Licking is actually a very large structure and I think you could argue that it's more important to the road network at this point than is the Brent Spence, since there is absolutely zero redundancy other than going in to town and back out.  

 

Tons of people commute from the east side of Hamilton County and Clermont County to professional jobs in suburban Kenton and Boone County via I-275, and vice-verse.  Those jobs wouldn't exist in those locations without I-275 since the pool of people they could attract to those locations would have been constricted otherwise.  They're lower profile than Blue Ash and Mason but nevertheless employers like Fidelity and Toyota attract a lot of Ohio workers via the beltway.  

 

When we don't have tolls people recklessly buy homes on the opposite side of the river from where they work.  It's dumb-dumb.  

1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said:

 

The lateral expressway was originally supposed to be on the Kentucky side, not the Cincinnati side.  There was no way to build such an expressway on either side without bulldozing a mile of 19th century buildings...EXCEPT for Central Parkway.  I only saw one drawing of Central Parkway replaced by an expressway, but that was a full loop around downtown including FWW, kind of like Kansas City.  

There was an east-west expressway proposed thru Clifton along Taft Road; coincidentally named the Taft Expressway. It would have connected to I-75 at Western Hills Viaduct and proceeded east to I-71 

52 minutes ago, OldBearcat said:

There was an east-west expressway proposed thru Clifton along Taft Road; coincidentally named the Taft Expressway. It would have connected to I-75 at Western Hills Viaduct and proceeded east to I-71 

 

Yeah it would have been crazy:

 

 

1 hour ago, Rabbit Hash said:

NB: 

Kyles Lane merge lane is too short. It creates an AM slowdown at the top of the hill. It needs to be extended .5 mile or all the way to the 12th Street exit. 

5th Street on ramp needs to be eliminated. As noted earlier, it would be replaced by a Texas turnaround that utilizes a fourth lane which is added where the 5th Street ramp is. This would only require a lane to be added between the current 12th Street entrance ramp and the 5th Street entrance ramp.

Whatever happened to this idea?
 

https://www.covingtonky.gov/news/2019/08/05/texas-turnaround-unveiled-to-public

 

2 hours ago, Rabbit Hash said:

I hadn't thought of the option of sending I-71 across DCB Bridge. Interesting. That would only involved changing ramps (even if it is just striping) at the east end of FWW, no?

 

I don't think you would need to change anything other than signs, technically. ODOT installed signs on I-71 South in the late '90s telling people to use I-471 to get to the airport even though that is not the shortest route, in an attempt to take some traffic off of the BSB. But I think most locals would continue to go the way they have always gone regardless of what the signs say.

7 minutes ago, taestell said:

 

I don't think you would need to change anything other than signs, technically. ODOT installed signs on I-71 South in the late '90s telling people to use I-471 to get to the airport even though that is not the shortest route, in an attempt to take some traffic off of the BSB. But I think most locals would continue to go the way they have always gone regardless of what the signs say.

 

The rationalist in me says just re-sign 471 as 71 and send it across 275 to meet back up with 75. That would be simple. 

 

The crazy man in me says, if KY really badly wants to build stupid highways, they should re-sign 471 as 71 and then extend it from 275 down Taylor Mill Road to meet back up with the current 71  at the 71/75 split. That would keep the construction crews busy for awhile and make Henry Fischer happy too.

Just for fun, I drew some lines on a map and wondered what happened if we never took the Interstate Highway system directly into downtown and never built 275 at it's current, useless as a bypass, diameter. 

Obviously this is better than what we got, but with only 1 highway running close to downtown, there would be stroads throughout Queensgate getting over to downtown, so I don't think the makeup of that area would be much different.  And I imagine, Reading-Eggleston would be even more of a moat with no I-471 bridge.

Personally I feel that Fort Washington Way should be removed, 471 renumbered simply as 71, and add 71 designation to the stretch of 275 to bring it back to connect with 75 in Kentucky. This removes a TON of over engineered interchanges strangling Downtown, offers a MUCH better connection between the riverfront and Downtown than we currently have the ability to implement (with the caps), it frees up spaces in the Eggleston parking crater to turn that into an actual neighborhood that's more connected to the Lytle Park area, allows for a much simpler bridge replacement scheme (instead of the current new bridge + refurbishment + enormous interchange scheme they're still peddling) and overall spreads traffic out and dramatically cuts down on people crossing the Brent Spence from Covington to simply go across FWW, and back into Kentucky.

 

Has that ever been talked about? I'm not traffic engineer so I obviously don't know the inside reasons for a lot of decisions, but it seems like when they rebuilt FWW they missed an opportunity for a much more transformative approach that really doesn't affect many people.

1 hour ago, jmicha said:

Has that ever been talked about? I'm not traffic engineer so I obviously don't know the inside reasons for a lot of decisions, but it seems like when they rebuilt FWW they missed an opportunity for a much more transformative approach that really doesn't affect many people.

If me emailing/pestering Nancy Wood, Mike Bezold and Jim Gray at the KYTC counts as "talked about" then yes I've been saying a similar scenario for years (in my scenario FWW remains as US 50, is half as wide as current FWW and doesn't have as strict of tunnel requirements since it's not interstate standards). I've never gotten much feedback other than stating that the parallel bridge is the current preferred option.  

1 hour ago, jmicha said:

Personally I feel that Fort Washington Way should be removed, 471 renumbered simply as 71, and add 71 designation to the stretch of 275 to bring it back to connect with 75 in Kentucky. This removes a TON of over engineered interchanges strangling Downtown, offers a MUCH better connection between the riverfront and Downtown than we currently have the ability to implement (with the caps), it frees up spaces in the Eggleston parking crater to turn that into an actual neighborhood that's more connected to the Lytle Park area, allows for a much simpler bridge replacement scheme (instead of the current new bridge + refurbishment + enormous interchange scheme they're still peddling) and overall spreads traffic out and dramatically cuts down on people crossing the Brent Spence from Covington to simply go across FWW, and back into Kentucky.

 

Has that ever been talked about? I'm not traffic engineer so I obviously don't know the inside reasons for a lot of decisions, but it seems like when they rebuilt FWW they missed an opportunity for a much more transformative approach that really doesn't affect many people.

 

I think a lot of planners and younger traffic engineers in the region agree with you. But the folks in charge do not, unfortunately. 

Or we could just cap FWW at this point. Much more cost effective than removing it. 

 

I would like to see some of the patchwork of lanes, ramps, etc over by 75 consolidated some like they did when they redid FWW 20 years ago and were able to capture a ton more space. 

If they do that, they may be able to get enough space to do a convention center expansion over Central, which would make the most sense. 

I think there two options from what I was proposing, one is to re-use the existing Lytle tunnel and the southern half of FWW for four lanes of traffic, two each direction connecting US50 and exit ramps between 71/75. The other is to push all the 71 ramps as close to Mt. Adams as possible, abandon Lytle Tunnel (maybe it could become the transit approach to the Riverfront Transit Center someday) and create more developable land along Eggleston. Below is the first version, using Lytle Tunnel. 71 and 75 don't merge until Florence KY in this scenario, BSB stays as-is, Big Mac stays as-is. Only ramps are re-worked, signage changed so 471 and portion of 275 get I-71 designation. This would reduce the funnel of 71 and 75 from being reduced to two lanes each to maintaining three lanes each, while gaining an additional lane of downtown and FWW on ramps. 

 

As Brutus mentioned this could also clean up a lot of land by the convention center and west side of downtown, and would also save a portion of Longworth Hall from being demolished. It would also eliminate the loop-de-loop connecting 471 to FWW which causes delays, wrecks and takes up prime real estate on the lower half of Mt. Adams. 

3 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

Or we could just cap FWW at this point. Much more cost effective than removing it. 

 

I would like to see some of the patchwork of lanes, ramps, etc over by 75 consolidated some like they did when they redid FWW 20 years ago and were able to capture a ton more space. 

If they do that, they may be able to get enough space to do a convention center expansion over Central, which would make the most sense. 

I'm legitimately curious if that's actually the case though. If the Brent Spence is simply a side-by-side replacement scheme, that cuts off around $1.6 billion of the current cost projection that's the result of the insane interchanges they're planning on building over there to deal with having two side by side bridges in the current scheme.

 

It essentially shifts 71 traffic off the Brent Spence and sends it across other highways that seem to be fine handling that traffic (maybe with minor improvements if needed?) and then greatly simplifies the replacement of the Brent Spence as simply a new bridge that only needs to handle 75's traffic and can remove the need to refurbish and continue using the current bridge when done.

A simple replacement bridge would likely cost $700 million to $1 billion to do. We're still $1.6 billion away from the cost of the current scheme's cost. That money saved can go towards removing FWW and turning it into a surface level BLVD that still carries the US50 designation, and then prepping the land from removed highway infrastructure can be sold off for development. Even if all that other infrastructure costs $1billion

8 minutes ago, jmicha said:

I'm legitimately curious if that's actually the case though. If the Brent Spence is simply a side-by-side replacement scheme, that cuts off around $1.6 billion of the current cost projection that's the result of the insane interchanges they're planning on building over there to deal with having two side by side bridges in the current scheme.

 

It essentially shifts 71 traffic off the Brent Spence and sends it across other highways that seem to be fine handling that traffic (maybe with minor improvements if needed?) and then greatly simplifies the replacement of the Brent Spence as simply a new bridge that only needs to handle 75's traffic and can remove the need to refurbish and continue using the current bridge when done.

A simple replacement bridge would likely cost $700 million to $1 billion to do. We're still $1.6 billion away from the cost of the current scheme's cost. That money saved can go towards removing FWW and turning it into a surface level BLVD that still carries the US50 designation, and then prepping the land from removed highway infrastructure can be sold off for development. Even if all that other infrastructure costs $1billion

The solution for tolls v no tolls. Make the current BSB a toll bridge and have it connect to FWW, 71 and Columbia Pkwy. Build a new bridge over 75 and have it non-toll. The 75 entry way is non tolls. The 71 entryway is tolled. On the KY side, it would merge just over the river in Covington and the highway would remain the same. 

 

Yes, the 75 drivers get the better end of things and traffice on the existing BSB will diminish signficantly. Those who work downtown would be incentivized to use the toll bridge, because it makes it easier to get downtown, those on the East side or going to East side of Cincinnati would have incentive too. Those going to Mason or along 71 would have options to either do the toll bridge or take Norwood lateral or Ronald Reagan if they want to avoid the toll bridge. 

 

I wonder if anyone has done a model of this type of scenario. As the new bridge gets more and more crowded, more people will be incentivized for the toll bridge at that point. 

Expanding downtown reduces the value of the rest of downtown.  That's why the interstates were so often built so close to city centers - to rigidly define "downtown" and keep the center of downtowns from moving.  The subway was killed to keep "downtown" from moving from Fountain Square to Central Parkway.  

 

https://www.amazon.com/Downtown-Its-Rise-Fall-1880-1950/dp/0300098278

 

 

Burying FFW and allowing for caps in the future WAS the transformative approach to its redesign, if that tells you anything about the level of discourse happening around highways in Ohio. :/ 

What I’d really love to see is the demolition of I-71 between the river and the Norwood Lateral, rerouting all traffic onto 1-75 from that point, not downtown, and then bury I-75 in a tunnel from Camp Washington until you emerge from the cut in the hill in KY. 
 

This would have to go along with fundamental shifts in transport investment but hey, one can dream. 

4 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

The subway was killed to keep "downtown" from moving from Fountain Square to Central Parkway.  

 

...and I forgot to add that the parkway was marooned from the expressway network (no direct grade-separated ramps were built from I-75 and I-71 to the east/west section of the parkway because highway access would have been too good for the parcels along it),  and OTR was allowed to deteriorate into chaos in order to keep downtown from shifting northward after the expressway network was agreed upon.  

 

16 hours ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

The solution for tolls v no tolls. Make the current BSB a toll bridge and have it connect to FWW, 71 and Columbia Pkwy. Build a new bridge over 75 and have it non-toll. The 75 entry way is non tolls. The 71 entryway is tolled. On the KY side, it would merge just over the river in Covington and the highway would remain the same. 

I think this was also brought up earlier but I have regularly heard the claim that it is not legal to toll existing Interstate. Apparently there is one exception that could work, variable congestion pricing, which makes a lot of sense as the bridge is heavily congested, even during non-peak hours. I don't know if Beshear would have the guts to do it, but if the replacement is going to have tolls, BSB needs tolls now to avoid the massive waste that happened down in Louisville.

9 minutes ago, Dev said:

I think this was also brought up earlier but I have regularly heard the claim that it is not legal to toll existing Interstate. Apparently there is one exception that could work, variable congestion pricing, which makes a lot of sense as the bridge is heavily congested, even during non-peak hours. I don't know if Beshear would have the guts to do it, but if the replacement is going to have tolls, BSB needs tolls now to avoid the massive waste that happened down in Louisville.

 

I guess the question I have, if that is the case, then why the talk about a new bridge with tolls? Would that not still be the existing Interstate? Or does that count as new?  

If you cant do tolls essentially period, then how come that seems to be the only solutions coming from politicians and the like?

43 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

 

I guess the question I have, if that is the case, then why the talk about a new bridge with tolls? Would that not still be the existing Interstate? Or does that count as new?  

If you cant do tolls essentially period, then how come that seems to be the only solutions coming from politicians and the like?

The funding bill MAP-21 passed back in 2012 legalized several forms of interstate tolling.

 

https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/ipd/tolling_and_pricing/tolling_pricing/federal_tolling_programs.aspx

Edited November 19, 20204 yr by Enginerd

24 minutes ago, Brutus_buckeye said:

 

I guess the question I have, if that is the case, then why the talk about a new bridge with tolls? Would that not still be the existing Interstate? Or does that count as new?  

If you cant do tolls essentially period, then how come that seems to be the only solutions coming from politicians and the like?

It's the infrastructure that's getting tolled, not the route. Also, there are other exceptions, which include rehabilitation/reconstruction, so under the current plan, both the new and old bridge can be tolled, even if they are both still 71 and 75.