Suddenly, news about interstate highways and bridges has taken on more urgency than that scintillating campaign to elect the next (or same old) guy to clean up the mess in
After jawing about the issue for nearly as long as it’s taking to put a paint job on the Kennedy, we’re now in a big fat hurry to get tons and tons of steel and concrete into place over and along the placid waters that give Louisville its geographical raison d’etre. Shouldn’t we first be in panic mode about fixing any deficiencies in the I-65 bridge that currently carries approximately 132,000 cars, trucks and buses per day?
I share the frustrations of many that our sleepy river town often changes at a snail’s pace. But I question the all-or-nothing approach of the Ohio River Bridges Project, whose motto is, “Two bridges, one project.” With a rebuilt Spaghetti Junction tossed in, its proponents seem to be playing an all-in game of Texas hold ’em for $3.9 billion in funding. I wonder how much of this instancy is based on fear that we’ll lose some or all of the hard-won state and federal largesse before any piers have been sunk or ramps erected.
Indeed, the dollars well could disappear as earmarked funding comes under more scrutiny in Washington and everyone wakes up to the enormity of the repairs that have been put off for our interstate highway system and other transportation routes. Too many demands for too few dollars may force some painful reassessments.
In fact, I’m expecting exactly that scenario. And if we’re forced to take some of the chips off the table, the convoluted political alignments that produced the two-bridges-plus solution may not hold together. What then?
I’ve come to an opinion based on my own experiences with the waterfront expressways. As a daily commuter between downtown and Floyds Knobs, I lived the alternate-route reality in June and July while repair work proceeded. Far from the nightmare I anticipated, my typical 20-minute drive in at 8:30 a.m. turned into a 30-minute navigational exercise, mainly along surface streets.
I avoided my normal on-ramp to I-64 at US 150 and took Old Vincennes Road down the knobs into New Albany, crossing under the freeway and glancing up at the overpass to gauge traffic flow. If cars were moving — and they were most mornings — I jumped on I-64 in downtown New Albany and followed the inside lane to 22nd Street in Louisville. (Planners wisely completed the section between the bridge and 22nd first, then opened it while the segment from 22nd to downtown was under construction.) Traffic cops moved cars through stoplights near the off-ramp and everything flowed smoothly up to Chestnut Street and east to downtown. On occasional mornings when traffic backed up before the Sherman Minton, I plotted a course to Spring Street and maneuvered through Clarksville and Jeffersonville to the on-ramp just before the Kennedy bridge, avoiding stop-and-go I-65 logjams to the north.
I had expected my delays to be much, much worse. And I learned that the congestion was confined to pinch points on I-64 and I-65 that I could largely avoid using surface streets. Could the pinch point that cramps Kentucky commuters heading downtown from eastern Jefferson County — the lanes where I-71 South and I-64 West funnel into exits at Third Street and I-65 South — be largely avoided on surface streets and by reconfiguring existing lane space in Spaghetti Junction? I think that possibility should be explored further.
And, I wonder, what would happen if we focused our Bridges Project urgency on building the missing link rather than pushing for a difficult-to-fund trio of proposals? Damn the torpedoes! I say. Full speed ahead with the $1.3 billion East End bridge and tunnel that would conjoin the Gene Snyder Freeway and I-265 in Southern Indiana.
Build it as quickly as possible, and then assess the situation. Compel all long-haul truckers passing through Louisville on I-64 and I-65 to circle around the city. Encourage automobiles and any other vehicles to avoid downtown if they’re not stopping there. Consider new ways to route traffic on existing Spaghetti Junction and bridge lanes. Turn some surface roads into thoroughfares that move cars more quickly to and from downtown. Then see what we still need and what we can still fund.
Let’s not allow all three projects to collapse due to a massive financial overload.
