10 minutes ago, Rabbit Hash said:

Any chance this improves the daily backup that extends back to Buttermilk and sometimes Erlanger?

 

I think it'll help, but it's marginal at best. Maybe imperceptible. The 4th Street ramp isn't the main reason there's a backup every day. 

Some people just don't feel comfortable tearing ass down a huge hill while others ride their ass and tailgate the shit out of them while hitting their brakes a million times. Any visible brake lights can have consequences for MILES behind them in heavy traffic. 2nd bridge or no second bridge that isn't going to change.

On 5/10/2019 at 11:08 AM, DEPACincy said:

 

I think it'll help, but it's marginal at best. Maybe imperceptible. The 4th Street ramp isn't the main reason there's a backup every day. 

Probably right. After thinking this through, what would be optimal is to extend the entry of the Fifth  Twelfth Street ramp to connect where the Fourth Street ram merges now. Fifth Twelfth is what causes the problem because there is not space for merge. If it just had a dedicated lane I bet the change would be very noticeable.

Edited May 13, 20196 yr by Rabbit Hash
Fifth Street ramp is the Twelfth Street ramp. Corrected.

I really wish ODOT would "dream bigger" with the whole approach to the BSB. I know the era of fullscale neighborhood demolition for freeways is mostly (thankfully) in the past, but this would be the perfect once-in-a-generation opportunity to at least try and fix one of the biggest mistakes the city made with both the destruction of Kenyon-Barr and the construction of Queensgate, which is not only really ugly but also full of a bunch of confusing roads that loop all over the place for no real reason. If I-75 was re-routed through Queensgate roughly along where Freeman Avenue currently stands before making its eastern hook onto Fort Washington Way, you'd free up a huge chunk of land that could readily be re-attached to the central core, while also cleaning up the mess of weird wide roads in Queensgate and around the current terrible 71/75 interchange. There'd be lots of new space to expand the covention center, the street grid could be restored, the new interchange at Fort Washington Way would be a more compact trumpet interchange, and you'd be able to build most of the new freeway without disrupting traffic on the current I-75. Downtown access would be available by new interchanges with Sixth street as well as the Second-Third street frontage roads. It's a pipe dream, but I think something like this would be a huge boon for downtown.

 

 

Edited June 3, 20196 yr by BigDipper 80

1 hour ago, BigDipper 80 said:

I really wish ODOT would "dream bigger" with the whole approach to the BSB. I know the era of fullscale neighborhood demolition for freeways is mostly (thankfully) in the past, but this would be the perfect once-in-a-generation opportunity to at least try and fix one of the biggest mistakes the city made with both the destruction of Kenyon-Barr and the construction of Queensgate, which is not only really ugly but also full of a bunch of confusing roads that loop all over the place for no real reason. If I-75 was re-routed through Queensgate roughly along where Freeman Avenue currently stands before making its eastern hook onto Fort Washington Way, you'd free up a huge chunk of land that could readily be re-attached to the central core, while also cleaning up the mess of weird wide roads in Queensgate and around the current terrible 71/75 interchange. There'd be lots of new space to expand the covention center, the street grid could be restored, the new interchange at Fort Washington Way would be a more compact trumpet interchange, and you'd be able to build most of the new freeway without disrupting traffic on the current I-75. Downtown access would be available by new interchanges with Sixth street as well as the Second-Third street frontage roads. It's a pipe dream, but I think something like this would be a huge boon for downtown.

 

 

 

Do you follow @movethemill on Twitter? It’s an account that endorses this idea. 

 

It would interesting to see if they could re-plat the land in modern times to mimic the historical incremental and granular development of a city without doing some never ending top down master plan with the freed up space. 

Edited June 3, 20196 yr by thebillshark

^ If it were done it would also be critical to make sure the street grid isn't turned into a series of massive stroads feeding into I-75.  Just look at what ODOT did to Gilbert, Reading, and Lincoln to accommodate the MLK exit.  In fact they would've done more to Gilbert north of MLK if it weren't already widened for the planned but never built Victory Parkway exit.  Mitchell and Hopple too are just chock full of pavement.  You can't simply plug an exit into an existing street anymore, it requires miles of widening and reconfiguration of the existing grid to make traffic flow, according to the engineers.  

That feeder into the grid at 6th Street would probably end up being something like the massive Ohio Street exit off the Kennedy in Chicago, clipping the grid and funneling massive traffic onto the surface grid.  You'd almost need to extend the 2nd/3rd collector/distributor system up to Ezzard Charles to prevent these "barf points" of traffic (which can also be called choke points depending what direction you're going).  

This was studied but discarded as part of the Revive 75 effort back in 2011. Would have been a game changer for downtown but the powers that be at ODOT were unmoved:

How could someone possibly think the above picture isn't a million times better the clusterfuck of ramps currently in downtown? 

^ Something something, blue bloods, something something.

^^Only beef I have is Longworth Hall is missing

 

Does anyone know whats going on with this site west of the Ohio approach?   A lot of activity going on here.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0944108,-84.5229862,3a,80.6y,167.94h,90.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sD04RzlERK1fjoCdfDH-ItA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&authuser=0

Edited June 5, 20196 yr by oakiehigh

On 5/10/2019 at 11:13 AM, GCrites80s said:

Some people just don't feel comfortable tearing ass down a huge hill while others ride their ass and tailgate the shit out of them while hitting their brakes a million times. Any visible brake lights can have consequences for MILES behind them in heavy traffic. 2nd bridge or no second bridge that isn't going to change.

 

What effect do you all think the Kyles Lane merge has? That one seems to create many problems as well with it's relatively short merge lane.

On 6/3/2019 at 8:50 AM, JYP said:

This was studied but discarded as part of the Revive 75 effort back in 2011. Would have been a game changer for downtown but the powers that be at ODOT were unmoved:

 There's literally no recognition of the existing and extensive rail viaducts in this rendering. Don't get me wrong, I love it but it wouldn't be this simple. Part of what make BSB so ridiculous is that it has to fly over the rail viaducts. I get that there is basically a shelf and then a drop from 3rd down to Mehring. But next time you drive south on BSB, look over to see how high the approaches are. Another huge reason why it should have descended from Kentucky along the same path as the Cincinnati Southern.

1 hour ago, oakiehigh said:

^^Only beef I have is Longworth Hall is missing

 

Does anyone know whats going on with this site west of the Ohio approach?   A lot of activity going on here.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0944108,-84.5229862,3a,80.6y,167.94h,90.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sD04RzlERK1fjoCdfDH-ItA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&authuser=0

 

Duke had to move their substation infrastructure to be out of the way of the new bridge.

45 minutes ago, jjakucyk said:

 

Duke had to move their substation infrastructure to be out of the way of the new bridge.

A portion of Longworth hall would be removed for the new bridge. There is an addition to Longworth, where the nightclub is located that is technically not historical. 

2 hours ago, oakiehigh said:

^^Only beef I have is Longworth Hall is missing

 

Does anyone know whats going on with this site west of the Ohio approach?   A lot of activity going on here.

https://www.google.com/maps/@39.0944108,-84.5229862,3a,80.6y,167.94h,90.9t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sD04RzlERK1fjoCdfDH-ItA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en&authuser=0

 

I have biked past it several times over the past few weeks.  There are signs up indicating that they are doing environmental cleanup.  There are pits on both the north and south sides of Mehring Way right now. 

42 minutes ago, savadams13 said:

A portion of Longworth hall would be removed for the new bridge. There is an addition to Longworth, where the nightclub is located that is technically not historical. 

 

The addition was compensation for what was lopped off the building for the first bridge.  Longworth Hall was Longerworth Hall in the past, now it's going to be EvenLessLongworth Hall than it already is.

2 hours ago, Rabbit Hash said:

 

What effect do you all think the Kyles Lane merge has? That one seems to create many problems as well with it's relatively short merge lane.

 

I don't remember it being that big of a deal but I never drove through at peak. Also it was 10 years ago that I was commuting through there.

Here's another rendering similar to the one above.

 

man that would be incredible. Does anyone know what the actual plan is? Is this all speculation?

Back in 2004, designers were considering one option that would have removed the existing BSB and built a new one in line with I-75. This design could have easily been modified to include a rebuild of the street grid much like the renderings posted on the previous page of this thread.

10 minutes ago, seaswan said:

man that would be incredible. Does anyone know what the actual plan is? Is this all speculation?

 

The final plan is this:

• Kentucky side
• Ohio side

Of course, Kentucky continues to oppose tolls and the federal government doesn't appear to be interested in funding the project. So that "final" plan may never be built...

MY VIEW: Brent Spence Bridge should heed harsh lessons from Louisville

By Aaron Renn

 

As the Cincinnati region continues to debate the question of what to do about congestion on the Brent Spence Bridge, it should take care not to repeat the fiasco that happened just downstream in Louisville.

 

Indiana and Kentucky spent $2.6 billion to build two new bridges in Louisville, including a new parallel span to the existing Interstate 65 Kennedy Bridge, the area’s busiest and which opened within days of the Brent Spence, has a similar but single deck steel truss design, and was even long painted the same color. But after doubling the capacity of that crossing, traffic actually fell by half as drivers changed their routes to avoid newly imposed tolls.

 

How did that happen?

 

Louisville spent decades debating where to put new bridges over the Ohio River, ultimately deciding to build two: a new crossing in its East End and a downtown bridge to increase capacity on I-65. The challenge in building them was the price tag of $2.6 billion. That was too high to use traditional funding. So Indiana and Kentucky agreed that, in addition to spending hundreds of millions of existing highway dollars, the bridges would also be tolled.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/06/06/my-view-brent-spence-bridge-should-heed-harsh.html

 

20 hours ago, taestell said:

Back in 2004, designers were considering one option that would have removed the existing BSB and built a new one in line with I-75. This design could have easily been modified to include a rebuild of the street grid much like the renderings posted on the previous page of this thread.

Oh man, even with this redesign they still managed to put in a gigantic and hugely unnecessary interchange. 

57 minutes ago, ColDayMan said:

MY VIEW: Brent Spence Bridge should heed harsh lessons from Louisville

By Aaron Renn

 

As the Cincinnati region continues to debate the question of what to do about congestion on the Brent Spence Bridge, it should take care not to repeat the fiasco that happened just downstream in Louisville.

 

Indiana and Kentucky spent $2.6 billion to build two new bridges in Louisville, including a new parallel span to the existing Interstate 65 Kennedy Bridge, the area’s busiest and which opened within days of the Brent Spence, has a similar but single deck steel truss design, and was even long painted the same color. But after doubling the capacity of that crossing, traffic actually fell by half as drivers changed their routes to avoid newly imposed tolls.

 

How did that happen?

 

Louisville spent decades debating where to put new bridges over the Ohio River, ultimately deciding to build two: a new crossing in its East End and a downtown bridge to increase capacity on I-65. The challenge in building them was the price tag of $2.6 billion. That was too high to use traditional funding. So Indiana and Kentucky agreed that, in addition to spending hundreds of millions of existing highway dollars, the bridges would also be tolled.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2019/06/06/my-view-brent-spence-bridge-should-heed-harsh.html

 

 

Toll the existing Brent Spence and use the funds to build a new, cheaper, bridge by the airport that some of the traffic could divert to. 

I've been saying for years that a $2 rush-hour only toll would make the majority of congestion disappear overnight. Toll from 7-9AM and 4-6PM and the problem would sort itself out. Cincinnatians are cheap enough that 30% of rush hour commuters would take a different route or adjust their work hours slightly in order to save that $4 a day.

2 hours ago, Ram23 said:

I've been saying for years that a $2 rush-hour only toll would make the majority of congestion disappear overnight. Toll from 7-9AM and 4-6PM and the problem would sort itself out. Cincinnatians are cheap enough that 30% of rush hour commuters would take a different route or adjust their work hours slightly in order to save that $4 a day.

 

It's interesting to think the opposite -- instead of charging a constant or peak-hour toll, if commuters could be paid outright to travel on buses or in their cars at off-peak hours.  I wrote a piece about it maybe 8 years ago but now with phones with GPS it's actually feasible.  

 

Imagine doing it low-tech 10+ years ago -- people would physically pay a toll during rush hour, that cash would be held for an hour, and then after an hour of no toll and no payout the tolls collected during the rush hours would be paid out to off-peak commuters!  Obviously with cash, people would simply drive onto the bridge to get the cash, inducing frivolous short-distance trips to just cash in. 

 

But with phones, people could become "registered commuters" and then their phones would alert them to the time when payouts begin.  It would all be handled electronically, with all drivers, including "non-registered commuters", paying in. but only qualifying commuters receiving the payout. 

 

Imagine a $5 toll to travel during peak hours but receiving $15 to travel during off-peak hours.  That's a $20 swing and would definitely influence behavior and reduce peak hour driving. 

 

 

 

Edited June 7, 20196 yr by jmecklenborg

75's traffic could be solved for 120M (1/10th) the price of this 4 lane rebuild if we put 50% of that into bus infrastructure improvements on critical north/south routes, and the other 50% towards free fares on certain commuter (or X routes).

 

Indy Go's Red-line costs 95M

Edited June 7, 20196 yr by 10albersa
Indy Go Comparison

The Rhode Island toll program is interesting, because not only does it toll existing highways, but it only tolls trucks, not cars. I would like to see something like that, with trucks being tolled all the time and then if there is still congestion you could add cars during peak hours. Because of the cut-in-the-hill I am convinced that even if the new bridge was 12 lanes there would still be traffic on the NKY side both going up and down the hill. If you tolled the bridge to trucks, it might convice more of them to re-route around 275 or 471 to avoid the toll and hill.

On 6/6/2019 at 6:59 PM, Ram23 said:

I've been saying for years that a $2 rush-hour only toll would make the majority of congestion disappear overnight. Toll from 7-9AM and 4-6PM and the problem would sort itself out. Cincinnatians are cheap enough that 30% of rush hour commuters would take a different route or adjust their work hours slightly in order to save that $4 a day.

 

I agree with Ram on something. Whoa. 

I would pay $4 a day to be on a normal person's schedule anytime rather than wake up at 4:30 am to shunpike and be unable to spend time with others.

Edited June 10, 20196 yr by GCrites80s

I've posted this before, but in light of the Louisville article- 

 

8 minutes ago, thomasbw said:

I've posted this before, but in light of the Louisville article- 

 

 

Have to wonder if the Roebling, which has been closed to motor vehicles for two months, would be able to handle that amount of increased traffic

^presently, no

2 hours ago, thebillshark said:

 

Have to wonder if the Roebling, which has been closed to motor vehicles for two months, would be able to handle that amount of increased traffic

Just put a $2 toll on the Robeling. If people are changing their routine to save a dollar then they will change it to save 2 as well

More federal funding may be on the way. Instead of asking people who use the bridge to pay a modest fee to do so.

 

 

Portman, Brown legislation could help Brent Spence Bridge, Western Hills Viaduct

 

Quote

The Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee approved a highway bill on Tuesday that includes language pushed by U.S. Sens. Sherrod Brown, D-Cleveland, and Rob Portman, D-Terrace Park, that would authorize up to $6.5 billion for major, nationally and regionally significant bridges, according to their offices.

 

The provisions, which the senators call the Bridge Investment Act, would create a competitive grant program aimed at easing the backlog in work needed on functionally obsolete bridges like the Brent Spence Bridge and structurally deficient ones like the Western Hills Viaduct.

 

There was always going to be a federal match for state/local funds. I don't think this means we won't see any user fees.

The state of Kentucky has opposed tolls from the beginning and has even passed a law preventing tolls from being enacted on the bridge. I don't see them backing down. Even if the federal government offered to pay for 95% of the project and the remaining 5% would come from tolls...I don't think KY would agree to it.

 

More information on Covington's "texas turn-around". This does reference restriping northbound so hopefully this means four lanes and the 12th street on-ramp does really slow down the far right lane meaning everyone else moves into the two left lanes but then immediately have to move right again if they want to go to I-71. This seems like a minimal amount of work and should actually reduce a decent amount of congestion. 

This signals to me that they know a new bridge isn't coming anytime soon.  Planning started in 2002 or 2003 and all we have to show for it is some shifted utilities on the Ohio side. 

I would tend to agree, but in the meantime I appreciate the KTC isn't just twiddling their thumbs and are trying to alleviate some of the issues. 

8 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

This signals to me that they know a new bridge isn't coming anytime soon.  Planning started in 2002 or 2003 and all we have to show for it is some shifted utilities on the Ohio side. 

We also lost The Dock night club.

There have also been a few other buildings demolished in preparation for the new bridge, including the former DunnhumbyUSA building and the Gold Star at Dalton and Bank.

1 hour ago, Robuu said:

We also lost The Dock night club.

 

Goth Night RIP. 

2 Trillion in infrastructure spending.   Could this be our one shot deal at finally making this a reality in our lifetime?

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/01/treasury-secretary-mnuchin-says-hes-having-ongoing-discussions-about-an-infrastructure-bill.html

Quote

Talks about Brent Spence Bridge replacement "temporarily on hold" while states handle COVID-19

 

... Discussions around building a bridge to replace the aging Brent Spence Bridge have been going on for years. ...

 

... The replacement cost is estimated to be over $3 billion. ...

 

... Now, COVID-19 has slowed down traffic and bridge replacement discussions. ...

 

... There is still a chance to make some progress on plans to replace the bridge in a few months. ...

 

I would tell you what's wrong with this article, but instead I'll quote Jake from 2014:

 

On 3/7/2014 at 5:58 PM, jmecklenborg said:

700 WLW still misreporting that the existing bridge will be replaced.  For the 999th time, it's being kept and a new bridge is being built next to it. 

 

Brent Spence Bridge traffic is lower in 2019 than in 2005. Spending $3.5 billion on a new span parallel to the existing bridge (they're not replacing the current bridge) and charging a $1 toll will decrease BSB traffic by 25% and gridlock every other bridge across the river.

 

All data ODOT- https://odot.ms2soft.com/tcds/tsearch.asp?loc=odot

All graphs ODOT- https://www.brentspencebridgecorridor.com/documents/

Wasn't there some talk of the current USDOT administration changing the rules to allow states to toll existing interstates and bridges? Now would be the perfect time to do so. Re-stripe the bridge back to its original 3-lanes-each-way configuration and toll it. All of the money can be put into an account that is only used for the maintenance and eventual replacement of the bridge when the time comes.

Yawn.  The media keeps saying the bridge will be replaced, when it won't.  

https://www.wcpo.com/news/government/elections-local/mcgrath-mcconnell-disagree-on-brent-spence-replacement-plans

^ I shared that on Twitter with a comment saying that the bridge isn't being replaced, a second bridge is being built next to the current one. And sure enough, within a few minutes, I was getting replies saying, "what, really?" (Names removed to protect the innocent.)

 

 

Between the repeated usage of the word "replacement" and ODOT/KTC's framing of the current bridge as "dangerous", most Cincinnatians assume the current BSB has reached its end-of-life and will be removed. We're like 15 years into this project and all anyone is talking about is tolls, virtually no one has actually looked at the blueprints or the renderings and thought critically about what's being built.

On 10/30/2020 at 6:32 PM, taestell said:

Between the repeated usage of the word "replacement" and ODOT/KTC's framing of the current bridge as "dangerous", most Cincinnatians assume the current BSB has reached its end-of-life and will be removed. We're like 15 years into this project and all anyone is talking about is tolls, virtually no one has actually looked at the blueprints or the renderings and thought critically about what's being built.

Maybe we will need to replace it after all: https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2020/11/11/crashes-fire-shut-down-brent-spence-bridge.html