On 11/17/2020 at 10:04 AM, ryanlammi said:

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 attended a webinar which attempted to predict future impacts COVID-19 would have on traffic volumes. 
 

It was predicted that traffic levels would return to normal sometime in 2022, but the expectation is for long term impacts to rush hour traffic. Many people are expecting some level of flexible work arrangements to stay; and this is going to lead to, if I may borrow a phrase, flattening the curve of traffic. Instead of traffic being focused in the mornings and evenings, it will be more spread out through the day.

 

This is just a prediction, but I think it has sound reasoning.

That's how it is in Columbus since we have a lot of jobs that aren't 9-5. Our Sunday traffic can be pretty outrageous. 

Edited November 25, 20204 yr by GCrites80s

I went down to look at the bridge at night last night.  It's amazing to see with no street lights on.  It's a huge hulking dark mass like the Big Four Bridge in Louisville.

 

Plus, there is nothing stopping you from walking/biking on to the bridge.  Cough.   

1 hour ago, jmecklenborg said:

I went down to look at the bridge at night last night.  It's amazing to see with no street lights on.  It's a huge hulking dark mass like the Big Four Bridge in Louisville.

 

Plus, there is nothing stopping you from walking/biking on to the bridge.  Cough.   

 

I may need to go for a quick walk tonight..............for exercise.  If i do it will be the reverse of when i drove over the L&N bridge one last time right after it closed to be remodeled into the People bridge.

 

 

Edited November 19, 20204 yr by SleepyLeroy
i not smart

 

22 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

I went down to look at the bridge at night last night.  It's amazing to see with no street lights on.  It's a huge hulking dark mass like the Big Four Bridge in Louisville.

 

Plus, there is nothing stopping you from walking/biking on to the bridge.  Cough.   

You expecting a protest march on the Brent Spence?

On 11/19/2020 at 8:27 AM, 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?

 

For a long time, states were not allowed to add tolls to existing free interstate highway infrastructure.

 

A few years ago I was talking to Aaron Renn (maybe on the UrbanCincy podcast?) and one of the questions that came up was, what is the minimum investment needed to qualify as "new infrastructure" so that tolls would be allowed? For example if we repaired and repainted the existing bridge and built the new "Texas turnaround" that is proposed in Covington, would that be enough of an investment to allow us to enact tolls?

 

However, USDOT has changed their policies within the last few years and now allows existing free interstates to be tolled. So we could slap a toll on the existing BSB to mitigate congestion and call it a day, and that is what Aaron Renn now suggests we do.

23 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

Plus, there is nothing stopping you from walking/biking on to the bridge.  Cough.   

 

I think construction equipment is supposed to show up tonight, so I wouldn't recommend anyone do that.

29 minutes ago, Magyar said:

You expecting a protest march on the Brent Spence?

 

Maybe some aspiring Instgram model shoots.  

Edited November 20, 20204 yr by jmecklenborg

16 minutes ago, taestell said:

 So we could slap a toll on the existing BSB to mitigate congestion and call it a day, and that is what Aaron Renn now suggests we do.

 

People erroneously believe that all trips they observe in a traffic jam are essential trips when the fact is that many of them are non-essential.  For example, think about all of the downtown and Mt. Adams residents who drove across the river to the new Newport Kroger to avoid the Walnut Hills, Corryville, and OTR stores.  

The silver lining of this is that driving in traffic this week in Mainstrasse I've seen license plates from Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New York etc. all driving through the nice neighborhoods of Covington trying to head south. Maybe this will turn out to be a covert tourism campaign showing people the historic neighborhoods they normally drive past at 70 mph. 

1 hour ago, ucgrady said:

The silver lining of this is that driving in traffic this week in Mainstrasse I've seen license plates from Michigan, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Georgia, New York etc. all driving through the nice neighborhoods of Covington trying to head south. Maybe this will turn out to be a covert tourism campaign showing people the historic neighborhoods they normally drive past at 70 mph. 

 

Unfortunately they also get to see the Hamburger Heaven. 

2 hours ago, jmecklenborg said:

 

People erroneously believe that all trips they observe in a traffic jam are essential trips when the fact is that many of them are non-essential.  For example, think about all of the downtown and Mt. Adams residents who drove across the river to the new Newport Kroger to avoid the Walnut Hills, Corryville, and OTR stores.  

Guilty. I work in Mt. Adams. We'll take 471 south for lunch just as often as going anywhere else. I'll go to the new Kroger at Newport Pavilion instead of any other one.

^I was just thinking that about the only good thing to come out of a second bridge might be another bike/pedestrian crossing.  We are lucky to already have four bike/ped crossings but none were built as part of any of the four interstate highway crossings.  It would be interesting to see what it would take to retrofit the two I-275 bridges with paths.  

Brent Spence Bridge Projections vs. actual traffic. Dashed lines are projections. Solid blue is actual traffic counts, dashed blue is trendline from actual data.

 

58 minutes ago, thomasbw said:

Brent Spence Bridge Projections vs. actual traffic. Dashed lines are projections. Solid blue is actual traffic counts, dashed blue is trendline from actual data.

 

 

What happened in 2015?

Not sure, maybe construction on the approaches?

20 hours ago, thomasbw said:

Not sure, maybe construction on the approaches?

 

The part that confuses me is that the traffic never came back to its pre-2015 levels. If there was construction you would expect it to go back to normal in 2016. Seems more likely that they changed the way they collect the data, which means it is impossible to compare pre-2015 and post-2015 numbers.

21 minutes ago, DEPACincy said:

 

The part that confuses me is that the traffic never came back to its pre-2015 levels. If there was construction you would expect it to go back to normal in 2016. Seems more likely that they changed the way they collect the data, which means it is impossible to compare pre-2015 and post-2015 numbers.

 

I think it's more likely that people changed their commuting habits in response to the restricted throughput and didn't come back once it was over. Either they liked their new route or they just got stuck in a new routine.

This may have happened recently in London: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/132/4/2019/3857744

19 hours ago, DEPACincy said:

 

The part that confuses me is that the traffic never came back to its pre-2015 levels. If there was construction you would expect it to go back to normal in 2016. Seems more likely that they changed the way they collect the data, which means it is impossible to compare pre-2015 and post-2015 numbers.

OKI and ODOT have different numbers for 2013 and 2015. Here's what the graph looks like if you use the OKI numbers-

 

 

Edited December 3, 20204 yr by jmecklenborg

Every comment section online is full of people saying "I'll never drive on that bridge again! It's NOT SAFE!!!!!"

 

The local media has really ingrained this idea into everyone's brain.

8 minutes ago, ryanlammi said:

Every comment section online is full of people saying "I'll never drive on that bridge again! It's NOT SAFE!!!!!"

 

The local media has really ingrained this idea into everyone's brain.

I've already experienced this and my point is basically; even assuming it WAS unsafe, it will now be safer than it has been in recent memory due to an end-to-end inspection and structural repair/replacement. 

 

That being said, this picture is awesome/scary:

Edited December 3, 20204 yr by ucgrady

We can also place a lot of the blame on ODOT/KTC who, in their campaign to advocate for the construction of a new bridge, have repeatedly said that the current bridge is "not safe*". Only when you push them on this point do they eventually admit that, no, the bridge is not in danger of collapse and is structurally fine, but it's "not safe" because of the number of accidents that happen on the bridge, which is more related to the narrow lanes and number of lane changes that drivers need to make due to the placements of the ramps on either side. Of course, most Cincinnatians do not pay attention to these details so all they hear is that the bridge is "not safe" and think it's going to collapse.

^I'm just wondering why there hasn't been greater investigation by the media into exactly why these two knuckleheads collided in the middle of the night when the weather was fine and there was no traffic.   I mean, who was was scrolling through Facebook?  

I was in Cincinnati Saturday and captured these photos of the Brent Spence Bridge as it undergoes repairs. A full set and history can be found at http://bridgestunnels.com/location/brent-spence-bridge/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

^That was fast.  

17 hours ago, seicer said:

I was in Cincinnati Saturday and captured these photos of the Brent Spence Bridge as it undergoes repairs. A full set and history can be found at http://bridgestunnels.com/location/brent-spence-bridge/

Thanks, these pictures are awesome! 

 

I have a crazy idea; what if while the bridge was closed they also... painted it. 

From the KYTC 2020 Highway Plan:

 

BRENT SPENCE BRIDGE PROJECT (ADDITIONAL PROJECT FUNDS FOR MAINTENANCE, REPAIR AND PAINTING). (10CCR)(12CCR)(SD)

2021-2022: $30,000,000

This past Thursday night, the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge closed for 2-3 hours thanks to a head-on collision between two cars that managed to sideswipe 2-3 more.  It was a total fiasco.  I happened to be out for a walk and crossed the Suspension Bridge with a ridiculous volume of diverted traffic.  You could feel the bridge vibrating rapidly thanks to the unending rain of traffic. 

 

 

I walked right past the accident but didn't take any photos because the firemen looked a bit annoyed. 

 

Bonus...they installed colored lights underneath the Clay Wade Bailey bridge's approach:

 

 

The BSB is expected to reopen this afternoon, about a day and a half earlier than originally expected.

On 11/12/2020 at 3:52 PM, 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. 

 

 

BTW that reminds me, I tweeted a question at Enquirer "transportation reporter" Jason Williams about the new "no hazmats" signage when it went up in 2013. Never got a response.

That's because he didn't know. You should have asked him which sophomores should get more playing time at LaSalle.

I walked out my front door this morning and was met with that wall of washy sound that is a fully-functional I-75 approaching the Brent Spence Bridge.  I live about 2 miles away but the sound travels across the basin and up to the hillsides. 

 

When I lived on Mulberry the noise from the highways was a constant, but if you live in OTR proper you don't hear it at all.  Hell you don't hear it in the West End until you can reach out and touch it.  

 

 

I used to have a store that opened at noon on weekdays and was open Saturdays, which meant no help from the radio or TV regarding traffic reports. Instead I walked outside and listened to I-70. If it was quiet that meant traffic was stopped or very slow. In that case I used city streets to get to work instead.

^The way sound kicks around in Cincinnati is pretty weird.  The hillsides in Pittsburgh don't seem to be as afflicted with freeway/railroad noise as Cincinnati.  

 

The really weird thing "the train" you hear in Walnut Hills is actually Amtrak on the C&O tracks traveling through Newport, Bellevue, and Dayton, KY.  The thing only comes through every other night but that damn horn is unmistakable if you've actually ridden The Cardinal.  

 

In fact the non-stop blowing of that horn is the worst thing about The Cardinal.  There are all sorts of dirt roads in Kentucky and West Virginia and each one gets a full blast or two.  

15 minutes ago, jmecklenborg said:

The really weird thing "the train" you hear in Walnut Hills is actually Amtrak on the C&O tracks traveling through Newport, Bellevue, and Dayton, KY.

 

This is pretty much the only thing we hear and it's rare where I'm at off Dorchester in Mt. Auburn.  Nevermind that I-71 is a quarter mile down the hill. 

55 minutes ago, richNcincy said:

 

This is pretty much the only thing we hear and it's rare where I'm at off Dorchester in Mt. Auburn.  Nevermind that I-71 is a quarter mile down the hill. 

 

I-71 is really loud toward the bottom of Dorchester (Ryan Ave.) but oddly you can't hear it just one block uphill at Highland.  It's also super-loud on Symmes, the street that parallels it between McGregor and McMillan.  

 

I had a completely bizarre acoustic experience 2-3 weeks ago when I heard fire engines downtown but they were actually in Covington.  The sound was coming straight across the river and kicking off the buildings and the skywalk to make it sound like it was coming from the north.  

 

 

Speaking of that. There is an odd acoustic anomaly at The Kenwood Collection. If you are in the retail parking lot you can hear the noise loudly from I-71 on the opposite side. It bounces perfectly off the underside of the roof feature of the building. 

On 12/22/2020 at 10:05 AM, taestell said:

The BSB is expected to reopen this afternoon, about a day and a half earlier than originally expected.

If KYDOT would have closed just the 4th street ramp in Covington, they could have restored breakdown lanes for northbound traffic on the Bridge, but they didn't because they don't actually care about safety (which is why the lanes were removed in the first place)

We're nearly twenty years into the Brent Spence "replacement" and I think this is the first time I've seen local media casually get this key fact correct:

 

Cincinnati's Brent Spence Bridge: No. 2 most congested bottleneck in the nation
 

A new Brent Spence Bridge – which would actually be a companion bridge, sitting side-by-side with the original – is expected to cost around $2.5 billion.

Business groups launch new campaign pushing for Brent Spence Bridge fix

 

State, local and U.S. chambers of commerce launched a new push Thursday to get the $2.7 billion Brent Spence Bridge project moving after nearly a decade of delay, with one Kentucky leader saying the commonwealth’s lawmakers could lift a ban on tolling the bridge soon.

 

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Cincinnati USA Regional Chamber, the Northern Kentucky Chamber and the Ohio and Kentucky state chambers held a virtual news conference Thursday to announce a new advertising campaign aimed at building public support for the bridge plan and more national spending on infrastructure.

...

The Brent Spence Bridge project calls for an additional double-decker bridge to the west alongside the current one, which will remain in use, as well as eight miles of highway widening from the Western Hills Viaduct in Ohio to Kyles Lane in Northern Kentucky.

 

Generally, one lane will be added in each direction of highway throughout the project, but that does not include the reconfiguring and enlargement of the immediate approaches on either side of the river, which have considerably more lanes. When the two bridges are in place, there would be 16 traffic lanes spread amongst them, not including emergency lanes on both bridges.

 

More below:

https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2021/02/25/business-groups-launch-new-campaign-pushing-brent.html

 

Also they are finally painting the bridge, for the first time since 1991. https://www.bizjournals.com/cincinnati/news/2021/02/26/brent-spence-bridge-maintenance.html

 

In the article it mentions the following ramps will be closed for the duration of the project:

In Ohio:

- The ramp to the bridge southbound from Fort Washington Way

- The ramp to the bridge southbound from Third St.

- There will be no access to the southbound bridge from downtown Cincinnati.

In Kentucky:

- The ramp to the bridge northbound from Fourth St.

- The traffic pattern is similar to a 2017 replacement of concrete on the bridge.

 

“What we observed then was that drivers adjusted their routes and traffic volumes on the bridge decreased. There was not a significant change in travel times for those who used the bridge for their daily travel,” Yeager said.

 

If this has already been observed, why are we still talking about building a companion bridge! I-71 and I-75 sharing the bridge is what causes the bottleneck, if we just rework the ramps and divert 71 south on 471 it decreases the traffic volume on BSB and there is "not a significant change in travel times". I mean why are we still talking about a $2 billion dollar bridge and tolls for f***sake 

Current Brent Spence expansion plan fatally flawed

 

https://www.covingtonky.gov/news/2021/03/10/current-brent-spence-expansion-plan-fatally-flawed

I feel like someone has been listening to me! Mayor Meyer last night on the news even mentioned my idea of decoupling 75 and 71 at FWW so that 471 would just become I-71 with reworking the lanes/exits and utilizing our existing bridges instead of building a new one that won't solve the issue. 

 

I really appreciate the following portions of the editorial: 

Quote

 

Size & congestion: The need for a 16-lane span was debunked through the further study in the 2017 Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Analysis. It is overdesigned by 30% and still doesn’t solve the problem southbound. The plan calls for the 8 southbound lanes crossing the bridges to revert to the current 4 lanes just south of Kyles Lane. The hill is already congested during the evening rush hour. More bridge traffic will add to, not reduce, the congestion. 

 

Footprint: The scale of the proposed bridges is hugely disproportionate to our community and does severe damage to Covington, its businesses and neighborhoods. The current bridge has 42 feet of pavement. The plan proposes to build an adjacent bridge with 128 feet of pavement and keep the current bridge, more than quadrupling the landing area in Covington. Imagine – get a picture in your mind – of a bridge complex that’s four times the width of the current bridge. I-75 did immense damage to Covington; this makes it far worse.

 

Diversion: Namely, tolls will cause traffic diversion, and lots of it. A Kentucky Transportation Cabinet study projects 77,000 cars each day will leave I-75 and use alternative routes to avoid paying tolls on the bridge. Don’t believe it? Traffic on Louisville’s Kennedy/Lincoln bridge fell from 125,700 vehicles in 2013 to 64,200 in 2018, a 49% reduction, after the bridge was tolled. This reality leads many to joke that the easiest way to solve the congestion problem on the Brent Spence would be to skip the construction and toll the bridge. Enough vehicles will seek alternative routes to get traffic volume on the bridge under its design capacity.

 

 

I don't know if it will make a difference, but I appreciate that local leaders are acknowledging the issues we have been discussing here for years and asking these questions. Also if they don't build a 128' wide new bridge they won't need to partially demolish Longworth Hall, which isn't nothing. 

I wonder if there are ways to keep the current bridge but change/streamline the onramp and offramp situation on the Cincinnati side. For example, completing the 3rd street onramp to North I-75 that was partially built during FWW construction and closing the 4th street on ramp. Also there is an opportunity to craft an exit to the Clay-Wade Baily bridge from I-75 south with an exit ramp, something that is in the rebuild plan already.

 

Couple those two with a potential reconfiguration of how 6th and 8th meet the highway, and we could get better access and potentially reclaim some downtown land from cars.

1 hour ago, JYP said:

I wonder if there are ways to keep the current bridge but change/streamline the onramp and offramp situation on the Cincinnati side. For example, completing the 3rd street onramp to North I-75 that was partially built during FWW construction and closing the 4th street on ramp. Also there is an opportunity to craft an exit to the Clay-Wade Baily bridge from I-75 south with an exit ramp, something that is in the rebuild plan already.

 

Couple those two with a potential reconfiguration of how 6th and 8th meet the highway, and we could get better access and potentially reclaim some downtown land from cars.

 

To me, the greatest enemies of smooth flow on the bridge (and possible fixes) are:

NB

• Kyles Lane Entrance - The merge is too short and should be extended considerably or just added as a lane that eventually becomes the 12th/MLK NB exit.
• Pike Street Entrance - Basically zero merge. This is the genesis of the AM merge delay on NB. either eliminate it, and/or close the 4th Street entrance, create a Texas Turnaround (as we have discussed) and add a lane between Pike entrance and old 4th Street entrance to create 4 lanes of the 75 mainline.

SB:

• Truck traffic fed into the left hand lanes by SB I-71. (If I-71 was rerouted on 471, you could probably lose one of the lanes on the ramp to SB freeing up space for a third SB lane in the 75 mainline.
• 6th Street Expressway lefthand entrance - Literally dumps traffic on the end of the bridge with no merge.
• 9th Street Entrance - Same as above. I bet there are 1000's of lifelong Cincinnatians & NKYians that have never used this ramp.

 

Have we discussed what becomes of the Lytle Tunnel if 71 is rerouted?

 

1 hour ago, Rabbit Hash said:

Pike Street Entrance - Basically zero merge. This is the genesis of the AM merge delay on NB. either eliminate it, and/or close the 4th Street entrance, create a Texas Turnaround (as we have discussed) and add a lane between Pike entrance and old 4th Street entrance to create 4 lanes of the 75 mainline.

From what I've been told this the Texas Turnaround is planned to commence as soon as the current work on the BSB is finished, and it would do exactly what you state here, removing 4th street on ramp and having the newly combined 4th/Pike street entrance creating the 4 lanes. 

 

1 hour ago, Rabbit Hash said:

Have we discussed what becomes of the Lytle Tunnel if 71 is rerouted?

It's frustrating that we just spent a bunch of money on the ventilation of the tunnel when there is an alternative where we don't need all or most of the tunnel. I guess I assume if 71 was routed over the Big Mac that the Lytle tunnel would carry 3rd street exit just as today, and send one lane to US50. Of the four current lanes in FWW, one of these lanes would merge to 75 south, one lane would (somehow) be routed to Clay Wade for Covington people via I-71 (this would allow 71 South traffic to not exit on 5th street in Covington to limit lane switching on the bridge) and the other two lanes would stay as they are, 50 West and 75 northbound.