During his address on jobs to a joint session of Congress Thursday, President Obama held up an infrastructure example in the following way: “There’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America.” The bridge he was referring to is the Brent Spence, which spans the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky. It is also the exact place where Interstates I-71 and I-75 either converge or split depending on which direction you’re traveling.
To those of us in Greater Cincinnati, which includes southeast Indiana and is one of the many “tri-state” areas of the country, the Brent Spence is the main focal point of frustrated commuters every morning and night. According to engineers, the bridge is a structural beast, and in fact it’s almost in a perpetual state of “repair.” From fresh paint, to new pavement, ask any goetta loving local and they can relate to you any number of horror stories of how normally awful commutes, can turn the roads into parking lots over a single lane closure. So President Obama was a bit off stating nationally (which it is nice to get the attention of the White House) that the bridge is “in need of repair.” For almost a decade now, with $47 million in Federal funds already spent on environmental planning and architectural design, the plan for the Brent Spence has been replacement, not repair. While it’s true it is a vital north/south link on the I-75 corridor, stretching from Detroit to south Florida, our bridge isn’t much worse than similar bridges, nor much more important than any other major bridge in the country. So why is Obama singling out the Brent Spence?
The answer lies in the old real estate idiom; location, location, location. Only this time it doesn’t have anything to do with this bridge being in the most ideal place possible, but rather in whose backyard it resides. On the north side of the river you’ll find none other than House Speaker John Boener’s district, and on the south side we have Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell and Tea Party upstart Rand Paul. During the past decade federal funding for this vital project has been virtually impossible to obtain. Original goals were to have a new bridge in place by 2015; a date that is not in reach now so Obama has offered a bone.
I have to admit; this is a pretty clever move on the Presidents part. Expecting resistance from the Republican leadership, he has cornered them into taking the risk of turning down funding for something they’ve been trying to obtain for years. If they turn down the proposals on infrastructure, Obama will surely paint them as putting party above country and in this case, their very own voters. If they agree to fund our bridge only, this will make them look selfish. In either case, this amounts to political maneuvering to back the oft-repeated speech phrase of “Pass this bill now!” By going directly to their voters, Obama is trying at the very least of making the Republican leadership explain why they’re against his proposals. If this plays out, it will be interesting to see how McConnell and Boehner react.