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@Streetcraft love your videos, can't wait for when your next one comes out. I do have a question tho, how do I get ahold of you. As, I have some questions I think you might be able to answer. Ciao
I gotta ask, if there's no on/off ramps from the roads and the new bridge is JUST for through-traffic... why does it need to be in the middle of the city?
When I-275 was built as the bypass around Cincinnati, someone decided (a politician, I assume) that it needed to go into Indiana, not just Ohio and Kentucky. So you'll notice when he shows the map of interstates in Cincinnati, the west side of I-275 takes a very indirect route in order to have one exit in Indiana. That adds a lot of miles if you're driving a truck from Louisville to Detroit and just want to get to your destination. The route around the east side of the metro area isn't much better. So you'd need to build a completely new "inner bypass" corridor that would provide a more direct route. That's essentially what the ODOT/KYDOT plan is with the new bridge.
exactly, stockholm is currently building a massive tunnel to the side of the city, because through-traffic doesn't benefit from passing through the city and the city doesn't benefit from the traffic either.
In addition to what others said, because that's where it already is. Couldn't tell you why they did it that way originally. And as a resident of Cincinnati, it is a good thing to cut off the west side of the city. There is almost nothing of value west of 75, absolutely nothing of value west of 127, maybe some nice GM riverfront parks.
Native Cincinnatian here, on the topic of the “vehicle” part, a lot of traffic is local since Cincinnati is a “sprawling” city rather than condensed. The vast majority of the people who go downtown do not live there, but drive. The best thing would to get a light rail system that allows the suburbs to easily get downtown. That would free up the through traffic, especially freight. Personally, that’s what the majority of the funds should be for. It’s not like we have an abandoned subway (that still has to be maintained) or a massive train station downtown or anything……oh wait….we do 😂
@@Composedblackness Nothing that can be fixed? Or just «The car is our God, so no thanks to public transit! We prefere to be choked by the allmighty car before ever lowering us down to building and using public transit»?😉
@@th5841 oh I’m sure it can be fixed and modernized to todays standards of what a modern subway line would look like but a city like Cincy wouldn’t be interested in making that long term investment
The streetcar was supposed to go out for locals to use, but it is more or less just for tourists. Same as downtown- tons of padlocks in every door for Air BnB folk to use at check in. Tourism brings in money, but the current city council and especially the mayor care more about looking good to outsiders or appearing progressive than actual improvements in terms of infrastructure and Cincinnatian's quality of life/livability for locals. I walk much less and rarely use my bike anymore. They made pedestrian walks where neither pedestrians nor motorists can see each other mid-block, made dining areas in the streets framed with bushes taller and wider than I am- cannot see cars or streetcar, they can't see you. They messed with the lanes to the point that drivers AND busses are severely delayed and have to make up for lost time, or are so confused by the nonsense that it's dangerous for everyone.
More lanes helps to a point. On a limited access expressway, 3 lanes is basically always better than 2. In an urban area 4 is often good, some people might just be driving through while others are commuting. But once you're at 5 it's time to stop, any more than 5 and you need to build a second road somewhere else.
@@rightwingsafetysquad9872more roads is the same as the fallacy of "just one more lane it'll help". The solution is to reduce traffic overall and designing cities for people
No. On any country where people are good drivers (AKA Germany, not USA), 2 lanes is more than enough. Right one for cruising at the speed limit or a bit under, and left for passing only, at high speeds.
What seems crazy about so many American cities is the way that through traffic _that has no reason to be in the city_ is routed right through the middle of the city. Why are drivers on I-71 going from Columbus to Louisville sent through downtown Cincinatti in the first place, instead of the main route bypassing the city altogether?
Because the bypass is so far out and covers so many miles that its impractical as actual detour for most traffic, like truckers who need to keep track of their mileage. Taking the interstate through the city is the fastest and most practical route.
@@1000rogueleader Only if you build the routes badly in the first place. A bypass shouldn't be a circle that you turn 90 degrees onto, it should involve as little deviation as possible so that it doesn't add a load of extra mileage. Build the interstates as long-distance routes that don't go into cities at all, and then just have spurs or loops to access the cities. That way you keep all of the long-distance traffic away from the city and separate from commuter traffic, and you don't have to bulldoze half the downtown to fit the multi-multi-lane highways in.
I think it's a mix of foolish ideas of more traffic=somehow more revenue even though it's shown to not increase much and actually decreases and also thinking more lanes is better so they put a higher capacity road in a city with a large population thinking that's the solution instead of simply avoiding it
As a Cincy resident, I can tell you that the Brent Spence bridge is the most annoying pieces of infrastructure we have. So glad they are rebuilding it. But I have no doubt that the new one will be just as bad. What we really need is a commuter rail system of some kind.
I love that your approach to videos is obviously urbanist, but not in a way that condescends and shuts out anti-urbanist people. The best way for change to happen is to change people's opinions, not create an echo chamber
I think we need both. The 'angry' and sassy channels like Not Just Bikes can be great at drawing people in, too, especially people who might otherwise find urbanism and city planning topics a bit boring and bland, and they did really kick off the whole new urbanism movement to begin with.
@@Coffeepanda294agreed, channels like that have their place as it rightfully riles people up against the foolish ideas that have been prevalent for decades
Meanwhile Streetcraft: Just one more *streetcar* bridge bro. Just one more *bike* lane bro This man is a genius! I'm pretty skeptical at this point of attempts to replace physical engineering to respond to a concrete problem with social engineering to promote various "social goods". That's not because I think that programs are always going to fail. But I don't trust the people in charge doing the programs.
From what I can tell, the issue here is that they have two freeways dumping their cars onto this one bridge which from the looks of it probably only has half the capacity of the freeways that are feeding it. Even without expanding capacity, there's stuff that could be done to improve the situation like adding variable speed limit signs in the lead up to the bridge to reduce the amount of stopping and starting that the cars have to go through while they pass through this stretch. People often underestimate just how much of gridlock is just the result of the reaction times that drivers have every time they have to start and stop. By proactively reducing the speed limit a few miles ahead of time, and adding those signals at the onramps, you can reduce the number of times that the drivers are starting and stopping and decrease the gridlock. Clearly, though that's just one tool that probably ought to be added, they probably are going to need to add some number of lanes, as well as replace the shoulders that had been available in case of breakdowns. It sounds like this is mostly through traffic, so I wouldn't necessarily expect adding rail service or pedestrian/cycling lanes to the side to be of any help. An HOV lane with dedicated on and off ramps would likely help somewhat as well, as there's probably some portion of the traffic that could be condensed indo a smaller number of vehicles.
@@DeniSaputta The current bridge really should be 10 lanes to do what it's currently doing.You need a breakdown lane to allow a rapid response truck to get to a breakdown and clear it. It's even easier with variable speed limit signs as you can have the truck drive up the shoulder and have the traffic running slower in whichever lanes need to be crossed, or are adjacent to the clog. It slows things down a bit in the short term, but the car or truck can be towed out of the way in a fraction of the time.
Every time there’s a huge highway project in Cincinnati-or, for that matter, every time I drive past Paul Brown Stadium-I think about the MetroMoves plan and what we could have had. But given the options, voters chose to give the Bengals corporate welfare in the worst stadium funding deal in existence, and decided against creating what could have been a vital piece of public infrastructure to renew the region for decades.
The main problem with greater Cincinnati isn’t the public transport. It’s the thoughtless land development. There are too many jurisdictions eager to turn their farmland into more sprawl. Look at what has happened to West Chester in the last 20 years. Sure, OTR has rebounded a bit, but the long-term trend in the region is away from density and toward sprawl. And there seems to be no regional interest in doing anything about it. No streetcar is going to fix that.
It would've taken 30 years and raised taxes. The reason it didn't happen is because people were reminded of what happened when we built the stadium and how taxes were raised with the promise of going back down after. The taxes never went back down.
@@YourAverageReviews public infrastructure takes investment and time. the road and highway infrastructure that replaced it also require public funds, but those costs-even if they might have been greater in the long run-aren’t as salient, nor are they put under the same scrutiny
Cincinnatian here, we have an abandoned subway tunnel that is decaying, and actually completing it will take so many cars off the road. The reason theres so many drivers because the streetcar doesn't leave downtown, and the metro system is unreliable.
I commute over the brent spence daily. This video has missed the primary problem. Semis. Almost all of the traffic is caused by trucks going up and down 75. The cut in the hill (the 3 mile stretch of 75 in ky) is a steep grade with too sharp of curves for a highway as it navigates the geography. Trucks go too fast down the hill and often crash. Trucks go too slow (20 mph) up the hill and there is a breakdown every other day. This can close a lane and cause a 40 minute delay over the bridge. Southbound over the bridge the signage states that no trucks are allowed in the left 2 lanes (though this isnt ever enforced, so the 20 mph trucks can be in all four lanes) Those left 2 lanes come from 71 S. So trucks must merge right two lanes on an unsafe bridge. My father in law was sideswiped two days ago on an onramp to the brent spence. It is a nightmare and every day there is an accident or breakdown on or around the brent spence. I’m all for expanding the wonderful streetcar and getting commuter rail or better yet, finished the subway we abandoned a half century ago, but the main safety and time problem is the semi’s passing through cincinnati, not the commuters. Maybe a truck bypass would be cheaper, and I would support that, but it’s the trucks necessitating a new bridge. Two years ago a truck crashed on the bridge and caught fire, closing it for weeks. It was pandemonium. The single point of failure for the entire region cannot continue if the city is to grow into the best version of herself.
As a semi driver who crossed the bridge just about a week ago, I understand your pain well. There was a jam from a broken-down semi blocking the left lane onto 71, and even with traffic moving at a crawl I was nervous about causing a wreck from drifting into another lane.
We did this in louisville, KY. We added another bridge next to one that was functionally obsolete. Split it so each bridge now handles traffic only going in one direction. The solution is amazing, no more traffic jams ever on either bridge.
Excellent work! Sadly, Cincinnati has a history of rejecting public transit projects. There are the historic abandoned Cincinnati Subway tunnels, but there was also a plan in the early 2000s called "Metro Moves" that would have developed commuter and light rail from downtown into the suburbs. The half-cent sales tax was voted down by a 2-1 margin by Hamilton County voters in the 2002 election, sadly. They built a transit center under the new Fort Washington Way in 2000, but it's essentially the new abandoned subway for the 21st century, used mostly for school groups visiting the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Hopefully they can build extensions of the streetcar across the river and into more neighborhoods, although of course it's limited in capacity by having to share right-of-way with cars.
Good video. Cincinnati has an existing, very useful bus system that can get you to and from the airport, to downtown, and up to the university all without adding a vehicle to the road. Seems like people get so caught up on rail and don't consider the bus. The streetcar is fine but doesn't have signal priority, doesn't have separate lanes. So it's actually less useful than a bus because it has no ability to change lanes to dodge traffic. And it's frequency is not as good as the main bus lines!
As a lifelong Daytonian, this is one of the most dangerous bridges in the US. While I'm just travelling through, I-75 is a critical highway and needs to be protected while respecting the neighborhoods and people living there. I-75 has been under construction between Dayton and Cincinnati for 20+ years...they need to get the master plan done and stop the never ending construction season.
The usual reason projects like this take forever is money. It's the same reason why the Link Light Rail around Seattle is taking so many decades to complete, doing it faster is possible, but would be a lot more expensive. Plus, it's being built from the core out, so the longer it goes, you start getting to areas that don't have as strong of a case to justify the excess spending to speed that portion up.
As a University of Cincinnati student living in Covington, KY, and commuting on this bridge daily, there is absolutely no need for a new bridge at the expense of our city centers. They've historically destroyed our city enough. Bring ring back more housing in the West End, invest in commuter rail, and expect traffic congestion during rush hour if you drive a car.
As a former cinci resident, now Chicago resident. The traffic across the bridge is not that bad. 10-15 minute delays at most. What makes it bad are all of the interstate commuters who dive through the city to go from one suburb to another
We need to reinvest in our railroads nationwide, period. And for those of you who think we need special tracks for new high-speed trains, news flash: Back in the 1940s and 50s, we had passenger trains rolling over pre-existing mainlines at 90-100 MPH...with freakin steam locomotives pulling them!
@@thunderbird1921and how would that help people that say, live in Covington and work in blue ash? That train would have to stop every 2-3 minutes, and it would take forever to get to blue ash.
I don't understand why the highway runs through the middle of town. In the civilized world, highways run outside cities and are only connected to cities. The new bridge should have been built somewhere completely outside of the city and connected to the existing highways and then greatly reduce the existing highways in the city...
That was my first thought. Why is this monstrosity in the city center at all? I don't know what traffic is like in the region, but without this data, the logical solution is to redirect the traffic passing through to 275 and discourage driving through the city by lowering the standard of the road
@@Gebbeth, Perhaps, building a highway in the middle of a city when the main roads can't cope with traffic is a thing that seems logical (just one more line...), and the illogicality of which is revealed only upon further reflection. Plus, I think back in the day when entire neighborhoods were being torn down for highways in the US, there wasn't too much global experience saying it was a bad idea (but I'm not sure, to be honest). Well, at least even I tried to do this at first in Cuties Skylines, but obviously it didn’t work even there, lol
Geography is a bitch. Cincinnati was built because the Ohio River is relatively narrow there, and a river valley in Kentucky breaks the line of 50 to 100 meter high bluffs on the Kentucky side of the river. Note how far out the I-275 bridges are from downtown. The Brent Spence bridge also carries a lot of local traffic from the Ohio side to the Kentucky side.
What a ridiculous comment. The bridge is already there. If you want to know why it is there, you can just read some history. Then you would also know there is already a full ring road around the city, including other bridges over the river. Thus building a new bridge somewhere else not only does nothing to fix the problem of the existing urban highway, it also does nothing to create a new alternative to the existing urban highway. You’re proposed solution does literally nothing to solve any of the problems at hand.
Just gonna throw this out there but this comes down to National Defense. They'll always rebuild something to handle military logistics better first and foremost. And yes, if there was a war, the Feds have the power to ban you from the Interstates at the drop of a hat. Look into it
Having a heavy rail connection to the airport would be a great connection. Earlier then later this bridge had to get replaced. A tunnel would probably cost 10 times more. Quite often we get calls for moving major roads and highways Underground.
13:15 I like how there are Škoda RegioPanter EMUs with Czech Railways livery in the render. One has just one car for some reason and the other has no space between the cars for bending. And the catenary is way too small, so the trains don't fit under it. And those trains seem to be on the same track. The longer you look at that render the weirder it gets.
That's the nature of a "representational" photo illustration at the early conceptual phase of any project. Convey the essential idea and worry about the details later.
This project seems eerily similar to the I-5 Bridge spanning between Washington and Oregon. Same problems on an incredibly outdated and dilapidated bridge
As a member of Bridge Forward, thanks for the shout out! We worked hard to bring a new lens to this project. We looked at both sides of the river, and the NKY side could have been shrunk, too. The root of the problem with all of these projects is that state roadway designers (Both KYTC and ODOT) simply have one job defined by the mandate that created them: BUILD MORE ROADS. We need to work in two ways: 1. Keep pressure on projects being designed now to make them better, but further, work toward changing the foundational DOT laws that talk only about roads.
If you take video suggestions, I’d encourage you to look into the I-5 rose quarter project in Portland Oregon, at its current state it’s a two way battle between state DOT with a budged shortfall planning to widen the interstate through a historic black neighborhood, and advocates fighting to have the (already trenched) interstate capped instead, there’s federal money on both sides further complicating the issue and has become a big deal in advocacy here
I have to say, as someone that has traveled across the Brent Spence hundreds if not thousands of times in my life I have never seen the project summed up so well that a layman like myself could understand even an inkling of the issue. Very well done video and thank you!
If you see the picture @9:18 you could also wonder why their is a road crossing a circle, can't be much of local traffic (if you look at the on/offramps provided). So maybe not building infra on high demand area end letting i275 manage the trough traffic, so you could disconnect the highways within the circle?
Reconnect? Queens gate and camp Washington are industrial areas. Plus there is flood danger in a lot of the queens gate area. Ft Washington way didn't cut access to the river front. That area was once rail lines that got moved when union terminal was built. Plus thats a flood zone. Everything south of it has to be protected from the 1937 flood level. Which is why the staduims have the entrances so high up.
As a truck driver, during what I consider peak times, it's faster to take 275 around, that way I'm still moving and not sitting in traffic, especially out of state traffic or semi's when can't negotiate the hill northbound without riding their brakes.
As a Cincinnati native, I'm happy to have a safer/wider bridge across the river. It's terrifying to not have any breakdown lanes on that bridge. Your "better solutions" has a very narrow focus on regional OKI. I75 is also a major north-south corridor between MI and FL, and the regional solutions won't really touch that. Coming up with a comprehensive solution would involve the federal, 2 state, and multiple city/county governments, and when have they every worked well together? Just look back at the video intro, and it's taken this long to just get to this point.
very compelling video!! really makes clear what expanding a highway means and how it compares to other ways of addressing the problem of too much traffic
@@fyrfyter33 The problem is that neither state or city wants to foot the bill. If politicians would work together and split the work, infrastructure like the Purple People Bridge wouldn't be literally crumbling.
Yep. That's a great idea! Let's double the cost of it. That will only mean higher taxes for residents of Cincinnati/Covington in the long run. Btw, for the people that cross that bridge twice a day, they would love to pay a toll for that!
The streetcar mention around the 13-14 minute mark. REAL. BRING BACK THE STREET CAR! Cincinnati used to have one of the largest streetcar networks, and now it is a dinky loop around downtown.
@@FordGT8806 Because who needs to ONLY go from Findlay Market to the Banks? It's not extensive enough to have good use, especially when the majority of those who work downtown drive in from the suburbs.
Both cities should work on a streetcar network and have a rail connection to the airport. This will for sure improve living conditions by a lot. This might be an option to scale down those peojects in the future. Foot and bicycle bridges should get build to allow people to cross this major river.
We have two bridges that are foot and bike, and a third that is usable as such. The main issue is trucks going from atlanta to detroit passing through.
Great video. I came across the bridge forward project a couple years ago and all i could think was how great it would be for the city. You did a great job of summarizing everything and hopefully it will help people realize what a important opportunity this is for the city.
here’s an idea: build a new freeway segment from the I-71/75 split at Walton, KY to the I-471 terminus at N-KY Univ. (roughly along the KY-16 corridor), then redirect I-71 onto this new segment as well as former I-471. there you go, now you don’t have to put a giant spaghetti interchange in your downtown core. in fact, with this setup we could remove the I-71 waterfront segment in cincinnati altogether.
A few years ago there was a proposal of constructing a bypass from I-75 at Williamstown KY to I-275 East. Though I don't follow these issues as closely as some of you do, a new route may well be the best solution to lowering traffic through NKy and downtown Cincinnati. Is that proposal gaining consideration?
It's obvious from the comments and from the terrain work that people of greater Cincinnati want better transit options. 3.6B could literally change the entire city. Rather, they are destroying more Covington, adding noise and air pollution, and spending billions of dollars to add more lanes - in 2020s. What? Are traffic engineers okay?
You can't make judgments about what people want from a YT comments section. This is a creator that attracts urbanists or would-be urbanists. Your average proud suburbanite isn't going to comment here. That said, Cincinnati's metro expanse is vast. More people in the area live in the outlying suburbs than in the city limits itself. Those people do not care nor want a public transit system because short of utilizing mass-transit helicopters, you're proposing adding a couple hours to people's commute everyday. No one in Mason, Milford, Florence, etc is willing to do that.
I have a hard time understanding why the United States insists on putting highways through city centers. Here the city has a beautiful bypass, wouldn't it be better to have transit traffic pass through the bypass, to ban heavy goods vehicles on the bridge except for access to the city center, to use the I75 and I71 as a thoroughfare and to transform them into an urban boulevard around the city center on which a tram can be added and a cycle path, and to build a passenger station (which they don't seem to have in Chichinati) in the useless buildings of the industrial zone next to the tracks. Thus the narrow lanes of the bridge limit the size of vehicles in the city center and this development, due to its capacity and speed, removes the desire to go through here to cross Chichinati and the station allows for the development of suburban and intercity trains to reduce traffic on the highway. One of the bridges of Chichinati can also be made pedestrian in passing in order to connect the two banks and with the transformation of the old highway bridge into a local bridge it will replace it. At a pinch the construction of a bridge to the west towards the airport for local traffic could be interesting with the development of an access avenue. I do not know if my reasoning is too European to be adequate or just the United States cannot do without its highways in the city center.
1:25 wow, I never realised how huger US motorway lanes are! Our motorway lanes are between 7ft2 and 9ft10! (2.2m-3m)! It’s wild to me that 11ft could feel narrow to anyone!
The average American semi truck is 8.5 ft wide, while European semis (freight trucks) are usually 8 ft, according to one company I saw. I realize that .5 ft isn't a lot, but there's probably a significant number wider than that, and I guess us americans like our space on the roads.
Not sure anyone has found the best solution for getting traffic moving between Cincinnati and NKY, but thank you for sharing. At least there is some funding available and options for plans. It’s the closest we’ve ever been to getting something done.
I live in the Northern Kentucky Area, so I’ve been passing over this bridge for many years. I can confirm that this bridge is safe and doesn’t really cause many problems. I don’t really think they should add the new bridge, mostly because I’m so used to the Brent Spence bridge and how to go around on it
I am also from NKy, though I left the area a very long time ago. The Brent Spence opened the weekend Kennedy was shot (11/22/1963). Like very many Northern Kentuckians at the time, my father worked across the River. The bridge has always been inadequate. With a month of its opening my father complained, "I'd like to shoot the (expletive deleted) engineer who designed the Brent Spence Bridge. There's only one free lane into Kentucky!" That's why there are four lanes instead of the original three.
$3.6 billion to build a bridge that just pushes the problem a decade later. Yet when Cincy tried to build an expansive transit network 2 decades ago costing $2.6 billion (roughly $4.5 billion now) that would’ve funded 5 light rail lines and 1 or 2 regional rail lines there’s not enough money.
Litterally all US cities history: „Once, city x had a big and dense urban core that was very livable. But when Interstate y was built, they destroyed much of the city, especially neighbourhood z, a largely black neighbourhood, and today the urban core is small with just a couple of office buildings.”
The fact that I-471 isn't being looked at to just divert all traffic that is planning to continue on I-71 towards Columbus away from the Brent Spence Bridge really frustrates me. It seems completely pointless to carry I-75 and I-71 over the Brent Spence Bridge today. I forever have personally felt the merger of I-71 and I-75 to be pointless for more than a few miles. I-71 traffic could be merged into I-275 on the Kentucky side and then exit on the current I-471 to travel towards Columbus. Eliminating I-471 completely and also eliminating anyway for through I-71 traffic to cross the Brent Spence Bridge. I take this path currently when I am traveling home from Kentucky to avoid the bridge and it's only a few miles longer but usually less time due to the back up on the Brent Spence Bridge. I understand the need to justify the efforts to run I-71 through the city after the work done over the years but it wasn't the best move 25 years ago, just own it.
Better idea: Using the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge of the 471 as new 71 and connect 75 and 71 via 275. Then there is no need to connect 75 and 71 downtown.
i think they should merge the 71 into the 75 north of the entire metro area, either by cutting the 71 off at the 275 or by rerouting it south of lebanon to get to the 75 while it's still in a rural area. i know nothing about traffic patterns here cuz i'm not from here so this might not be the best solution, but it'll get rid of at least 17 miles of interstate and finish connecting downtown with the waterfront
Yeah terrible take, there is literally no major roads that would get you from Lebanon to cincy without adding 2 hours onto a already 45 min drive. 75 daily is more crowded than 71, adding anymore traffic would create more havoc. The surrounding area's like Lebanon, Mason, Hamilton have 200+ thousand residents that need 71 to commute. We can't use backroads because they don't exist going to cincy
What they need to do is force thru traffic (especially semis) to use 275. Most of the traffic that passes through cincinnati is not local. (I imagine that's why the new plan basically has them bypass the city). They could spend the money fixing intersections with 275 that would account for the extra traffic load and then also work on the collector system by union terminal. Most of the grid just connects or ends at 75 instead of continuing through it. Just like the did with 71
An all-modes (car, truck, train/tram, pedestrian, bicycle) replacement bridge versus just another automotive bridge is obviously the answer. Unfortunately that would the least likely scenario.
I seriously don’t get how governments don’t understand that more lanes, given four years, usually means more traffic. Like that’s the fundamental basics of urban design knowledge
I am from this area. The obstacles to the bridge project were A) Aquiring the land. B) Ohio wanted a toll system, Kentucky did not. Federal funding has been there, but the two states were not on the same page about how this project was to move forward. Btw sounds like the creator of the video has no real knowledge of this project or the transportation systems of this area and is just parroting what they are reading. There is plenty of pedestrian/ bicycle paths over the river. The interstate on the Kentucky side is not a problem. The Brent Spence Bridge is an aging structure that needs to be expanded to support the traffic it receives. It is part of a major artery of commercial transportation. Only time congestion really happens is due to accidents or construction. The author of this video is clueless throwing around numbers they picked up from somebody else and has no real comprehension of the situation.
travelling ohioan here. i hated this bridge so much it made me hate cincinatti as a whole, im so glad it’s getting fixed. rush hour traffic would clog EVERYTHING up
Looking at the highway system on google maps. I wonder why they wont just demolish the I71 and I75 through Cincinnati anyways and just diverge all interstate traffic towards the I275. I checked for a route from Florence KY to South Lebanon, OH and it only added 7 minutes of travel time... Is it really worth destroying the urban fabric of a city for just 7 minutes?
Because of how far away and long 275 is. It would add a lot of extra mileage to any trip through Cincinnati, and its too far away to be of much use to local traffic.
@@1000rogueleader In my opinion, thru traffic should have to deal with it (previous commenter also said it only added 7 minutes), and local traffic can use local roads, which really brings us back to the issue of having better alternatives to cars.
@@1000rogueleader you could continue a highway until downtown Cincinnati to connect local traffic. But the city should not have to care for through-traffic. They destroy the city, emitting loads of noise and air pollution, while giving no benefits at all. Like I said, half the downtown area is destroyed for just a 7 min time save for traffic going through Cincinnati. I am just wondering if that's really worth it...
@@maroon9273or just reroute i71 over the 471 bridge which drops right onto 275 in Kentucky. From there it’s an easy crossover to continue on I75. No new bridge needed
As someone who has to travel this bridge to get to a from work, daily. Yes I take it southbound in the morning, and northbound in the evening. And you hit the nail on the head with 99.9% of what you said. The Street Car is a failure, no on rides it.
More highway capacity will always induce some demand ... The only thing that actually solves traffic is options. More paths, more routes, more modes, mode destinations.
It needs to be a toll bridge which would divert traffic to other less busy bridges in the area. There’s an old study that shows it would solve the congestion problem
@@highlymedicated2438 Cincinnati is in Ohio. In no universe is Ohio a part of Dixie. Even Maryland has a greater claim to that. Just because something is ass backwards doesn’t automatically mean it’s the South.
My biggest complaint is that they already shut down the Covington pool since the new bridge will tear through it. It was free for residents and such a short walk from my house that I could just hop over there on my lunch break. I miss it already
Great video. I think all of the responses calling for streetcar or pedestrian bridges are not paying attention to the fact that most of the traffic crossing the bridge is not local. It’s consumer traffic, or semis. So adding those options for locals are cute to say the least, but even if a new bridge had 5 lanes in each direction with pedestrian access on each side, we would still have a massive singular choke point in an increasingly vibrant downtown area of a major city. We would just have a few people walking across it. The real issue is semi trucks moving goods. They should be diverted to the perimeter of the city (275) unless making a local delivery or pickup. They would never see the Cut in the Hill where they have to slow to go down or struggle to get up.
Cincinnati is notoriously hilly and has about 4 months if decent biking weather per year. The seasons are cold-pleasant-hot and humid-pleasant-cold and we get 45 inches of precipitation a year. Biking as a mode of practical transport isn't and will never be a thing. And the streetcar is essentially a novelty (think San Francisco cable cars) and a means of practical transport for very few.
u do realize people bike just fine in cities with mountains in the middle of them in other parts of the world right.. like cincinnatis hills aren't really all that crazy to bike on
@@nunyabidness117 people bike in portland oregon, it's rainy all the time, really icy in the winter, and now incredibly hot in the summer thanks to climate change. If it's convenient people will bike, and portland made it convenient. If people in norway can bike i'm sure Cincinnati can handle it... it's not like it's a requirement to do it...
I'd like to introduce you to Chicago. A city without temperate weather and sprawl for miles from the northside to downtown. I biked all over that city, and thousands of others do. Biking in Cincy COULD be a practical solution if it were built to accommodate it AND if drivers didn't feel that they were entitled to the roadways.
@@nkycardcollector sorry its just impossible to ride a bicycle in cincinnati, people in the area have been driving since the dawn of man, even in the late 1600s during british rule people drove. no other way up those hills. absolutely no way.
I-75 in northern kentucky going north goes from 4 lanes to 3 lanes to back to 4 lanes. Every workday morning for the last 60 years it jams up. It isnt a matter of, 'oh if we build 5 lanes they will just fill 5 lanes'. It has always been woefully undersized since traffic studies in the early 60's were in their infancy. Developable farmland in Cincinnati starts 25 miles north and maybe 10 miles south and the bridge has constructed development for decades. Northern Kentucky is not one large cohesive downtown as is Cincinnati but dozens and dozens of small towns grown together. Covington is on the east side of I-75 and Villa Hills, Park Hills, and Ludlow in the other. Losing a few dozen low-grade houses will not matter.
My favorite part is coming down through town on 71 and knowing that the river is to your left the whole time and that you’re going to have to cross it, again it’s on your left, only to have the speed limit drop to hard stop for a hard right swerve, I guess you could call it a curve, (on a freeway) and then tight loop back the opposite direction. Between two concrete walls and other vehicles hitting this spot with you all at once.
complete waste of money, traffic only viable solution is to densify, if you dont like it then move to villages, adding lanes and building bigger roads just leads to larger distances between buildings, more parking, more gas stations, shops etc... a death spiral, even a toddler should be able to comprehend this. not saying roads shouldnt be built, but limit them to 2 small lanes at most inside city with 4lanes as collectors to get in and out the city, everything else should use high density transport(bus/train/bike/walking). and finaly END strict zoning laws and allow mixed usage, limit zoning laws to below 10 in the entire country with all of them mixed to varying degrees, not the current 1000+ zoning laws.
Rerouting through traffic with the 275 seems like the easiest solution for alleviating traffic, especially since most of that traffic doesn't even go downtown. Just seems silly to me that they route people directly downtown just to get past it.
After the jackknifed hazmat trailer crashed on the Brent Spence a couple years ago at night when not very many drivers were on the bridge it became very apparent the bridge was too dangerous. It closed the bridge for weeks. The Texas Turnaround they implemented on the Kentucky side helped alleviate the root cause of this, cars forced to merge multiple lanes aggressively in front of semis, but it is still a tragedy waiting for a date with destiny at its current 4x11ft decks. I drive this bridge daily commuting, and every single time I feel like I'm in a demolition derby race with my little Kia hamster car boxed in by semis. That said, when major infrastructure changes are made I know it's really tough for those geographically impacted. Growing pains in a city are not simple feats and there's rarely a solution where everyone wins.
Let's just get the damned thing built. In 2002 I worked for a design firm that went with ODOT to negotiate with KDOT and the price was going to be in the high hundred millions. With every change of location or added side streets additional environmental impact studies have to be done which add time and time adds money. I almost forgot the historical studies. LETS JUST GO before the bridge needs to be refurbished again.
Who hates the bridge? I'm from Ohio Cincinnati and I've never heard anyone hate on the bridge but people who have never seen it before. It's old, and it's cool. It's not uncomfortable to drive on and it makes you appreciate how the Rust belt used to look/function back in the old days.
Years ago Kentucky wanted a new bridge for I-71, eliminating both expressways using the Brent Spence Bridge. But Ohio rejected it. It left many people scratching their heads.
The gets things done administration is the one that actually put meaningful money into making this happen. Making it happen better is a great thing, too! After all, the theme has been: Build Back Better.
The biggest problem now is the I-75 approach from the north. The interstate goes from 5 lanes down to 2 to cross the bridge. A back occurs sometimes reaching a half mile. A large percentage of the traffic is through trucks. Dedicated express lanes could go a long way to getting the trucks out of the mix. There is no easy answer tho. Cincy's interstate system is notoriously clogged everywhere you look.
Thank you for producing such a thorough and accurate video about this project. I am a Cincinnatian and urbanist who has been closely following the BSB project for the past two decades and there has been so much misinformation about the project in our local media and among the general population. It is often referred to as the “Brent Spence Bridge replacement” which is inaccurate since the current bridge will be kept and a second bridge built next to it. Much of the propaganda from the state DOTs strongly implied that the original bridge is structurally unsound and this has led to the totally inaccurate public perception that it’s about to fall into the river. This video will be the new place I send people for accurate information about the project. There hasn’t been a regional light rail plan for Greater Cincinnati since the failure of the MetroMoves proposal in 2002. We should be using this as an opportunity to come up with a new plan that includes light rail and commuter rail, but unfortunately the leadership at OKI (our local MPO) has totally dropped the ball.
I love driving through downtown Cincy on 71. I live near Columbus and Cincy seems to flow better through its downtown than Columbus does. The best part of the trip is when you are in KY and going north on the 71/75 interstate and you pop over the hill and suddenly Cincy appears in all its glory. It is one of the best entrances into a city anywhere in the US, especially at night. I don't mind the BS bridge; the hint of danger makes you feel alive.
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nice video!
This was actually such a interesting sponsor!
I don't live in the US nor am American,bur I believe media should be the most neutral it can be.
@@Streetcraft they need to make 75 a toll bridge to get through traffic to take 275 around the city like they are supposed to.
@Streetcraft love your videos, can't wait for when your next one comes out. I do have a question tho, how do I get ahold of you. As, I have some questions I think you might be able to answer. Ciao
You should make a video for your ideas to fix lake shore drive in chicago
I gotta ask, if there's no on/off ramps from the roads and the new bridge is JUST for through-traffic... why does it need to be in the middle of the city?
the million dollar question of every single u.s. cities interactions with interstates
@@reece18 more like billion given the price tag
When I-275 was built as the bypass around Cincinnati, someone decided (a politician, I assume) that it needed to go into Indiana, not just Ohio and Kentucky. So you'll notice when he shows the map of interstates in Cincinnati, the west side of I-275 takes a very indirect route in order to have one exit in Indiana. That adds a lot of miles if you're driving a truck from Louisville to Detroit and just want to get to your destination. The route around the east side of the metro area isn't much better. So you'd need to build a completely new "inner bypass" corridor that would provide a more direct route. That's essentially what the ODOT/KYDOT plan is with the new bridge.
exactly, stockholm is currently building a massive tunnel to the side of the city, because through-traffic doesn't benefit from passing through the city and the city doesn't benefit from the traffic either.
In addition to what others said, because that's where it already is. Couldn't tell you why they did it that way originally. And as a resident of Cincinnati, it is a good thing to cut off the west side of the city. There is almost nothing of value west of 75, absolutely nothing of value west of 127, maybe some nice GM riverfront parks.
Native Cincinnatian here, on the topic of the “vehicle” part, a lot of traffic is local since Cincinnati is a “sprawling” city rather than condensed. The vast majority of the people who go downtown do not live there, but drive. The best thing would to get a light rail system that allows the suburbs to easily get downtown. That would free up the through traffic, especially freight. Personally, that’s what the majority of the funds should be for. It’s not like we have an abandoned subway (that still has to be maintained) or a massive train station downtown or anything……oh wait….we do 😂
So why is it abandoned, and what can be done to make it work?
@@th5841it was halted during World War II the subway isn’t up to todays standards, the corridors are too small for a train to pass through
@@Composedblackness Nothing that can be fixed?
Or just «The car is our God, so no thanks to public transit! We prefere to be choked by the allmighty car before ever lowering us down to building and using public transit»?😉
@@th5841 oh I’m sure it can be fixed and modernized to todays standards of what a modern subway line would look like but a city like Cincy wouldn’t be interested in making that long term investment
The streetcar was supposed to go out for locals to use, but it is more or less just for tourists. Same as downtown- tons of padlocks in every door for Air BnB folk to use at check in. Tourism brings in money, but the current city council and especially the mayor care more about looking good to outsiders or appearing progressive than actual improvements in terms of infrastructure and Cincinnatian's quality of life/livability for locals.
I walk much less and rarely use my bike anymore. They made pedestrian walks where neither pedestrians nor motorists can see each other mid-block, made dining areas in the streets framed with bushes taller and wider than I am- cannot see cars or streetcar, they can't see you. They messed with the lanes to the point that drivers AND busses are severely delayed and have to make up for lost time, or are so confused by the nonsense that it's dangerous for everyone.
99% of traffic engineers quit "one more lane bro" before finally fixing traffic
More lanes helps to a point. On a limited access expressway, 3 lanes is basically always better than 2. In an urban area 4 is often good, some people might just be driving through while others are commuting. But once you're at 5 it's time to stop, any more than 5 and you need to build a second road somewhere else.
@@rightwingsafetysquad9872more roads is the same as the fallacy of "just one more lane it'll help". The solution is to reduce traffic overall and designing cities for people
GET IT TWISTED
No. On any country where people are good drivers (AKA Germany, not USA), 2 lanes is more than enough. Right one for cruising at the speed limit or a bit under, and left for passing only, at high speeds.
@@comphoto6451 more roads do help though especially when there is very limited connections where you can make it more
What seems crazy about so many American cities is the way that through traffic _that has no reason to be in the city_ is routed right through the middle of the city. Why are drivers on I-71 going from Columbus to Louisville sent through downtown Cincinatti in the first place, instead of the main route bypassing the city altogether?
Because the bypass is so far out and covers so many miles that its impractical as actual detour for most traffic, like truckers who need to keep track of their mileage. Taking the interstate through the city is the fastest and most practical route.
@@1000rogueleader Only if you build the routes badly in the first place. A bypass shouldn't be a circle that you turn 90 degrees onto, it should involve as little deviation as possible so that it doesn't add a load of extra mileage. Build the interstates as long-distance routes that don't go into cities at all, and then just have spurs or loops to access the cities. That way you keep all of the long-distance traffic away from the city and separate from commuter traffic, and you don't have to bulldoze half the downtown to fit the multi-multi-lane highways in.
I think it's a mix of foolish ideas of more traffic=somehow more revenue even though it's shown to not increase much and actually decreases and also thinking more lanes is better so they put a higher capacity road in a city with a large population thinking that's the solution instead of simply avoiding it
For loops your talking a city ring road which connects to long distance roads? @@stevieinselby
Most of the time it was used as an opportunity to destroy Black communities. They also would separate them from the rest of the city.
2:02 the absolute annihilation from before to after. It is dumfounding.
nothing compared to my cities skylines designs
IT ONLY TOOK AWAY HOMES FOR 50.000 PEOPLE. @@user-wq9mw2xz3j
Yep, every Midwest city had basically the same thing happen.
@@user-wq9mw2xz3j - HAHA I have some wild and crazy interchanges in mine HAHA
You can tell they did that deliberately. Like there was a way to build that minimizing local impact but they went for maximum destruction.
I'm so so happy that you've been focusing on Cincinnati and NKY recently. Thanks!
As a Cincy resident, I can tell you that the Brent Spence bridge is the most annoying pieces of infrastructure we have. So glad they are rebuilding it. But I have no doubt that the new one will be just as bad. What we really need is a commuter rail system of some kind.
That's what I was thinking. Like what we have over here in MN up in the cities.
it might be worth it to use the abandoned subway tunnels
@@JessInThe999 that’s what I think too. But idk how much rehab they would need.
I can tell you right now it'll only make the traffic worse.
It’s not like we have an abandoned subway system or a large train station downtown…..😂
I love that your approach to videos is obviously urbanist, but not in a way that condescends and shuts out anti-urbanist people. The best way for change to happen is to change people's opinions, not create an echo chamber
I think we need both. The 'angry' and sassy channels like Not Just Bikes can be great at drawing people in, too, especially people who might otherwise find urbanism and city planning topics a bit boring and bland, and they did really kick off the whole new urbanism movement to begin with.
@@Coffeepanda294agreed, channels like that have their place as it rightfully riles people up against the foolish ideas that have been prevalent for decades
"Let's add one more lane."
"No, that never works."
"I meant bridge. One more bridge."
*gobsmacked* "This man's a genius."
Meanwhile Streetcraft:
Just one more *streetcar* bridge bro.
Just one more *bike* lane bro
This man is a genius!
I'm pretty skeptical at this point of attempts to replace physical engineering to respond to a concrete problem with social engineering to promote various "social goods". That's not because I think that programs are always going to fail. But I don't trust the people in charge doing the programs.
8 lanes is not enough So we have to build a bigger bridge with 10 lanes
From what I can tell, the issue here is that they have two freeways dumping their cars onto this one bridge which from the looks of it probably only has half the capacity of the freeways that are feeding it. Even without expanding capacity, there's stuff that could be done to improve the situation like adding variable speed limit signs in the lead up to the bridge to reduce the amount of stopping and starting that the cars have to go through while they pass through this stretch. People often underestimate just how much of gridlock is just the result of the reaction times that drivers have every time they have to start and stop. By proactively reducing the speed limit a few miles ahead of time, and adding those signals at the onramps, you can reduce the number of times that the drivers are starting and stopping and decrease the gridlock.
Clearly, though that's just one tool that probably ought to be added, they probably are going to need to add some number of lanes, as well as replace the shoulders that had been available in case of breakdowns. It sounds like this is mostly through traffic, so I wouldn't necessarily expect adding rail service or pedestrian/cycling lanes to the side to be of any help.
An HOV lane with dedicated on and off ramps would likely help somewhat as well, as there's probably some portion of the traffic that could be condensed indo a smaller number of vehicles.
@@DeniSaputta The current bridge really should be 10 lanes to do what it's currently doing.You need a breakdown lane to allow a rapid response truck to get to a breakdown and clear it. It's even easier with variable speed limit signs as you can have the truck drive up the shoulder and have the traffic running slower in whichever lanes need to be crossed, or are adjacent to the clog. It slows things down a bit in the short term, but the car or truck can be towed out of the way in a fraction of the time.
Every time there’s a huge highway project in Cincinnati-or, for that matter, every time I drive past Paul Brown Stadium-I think about the MetroMoves plan and what we could have had. But given the options, voters chose to give the Bengals corporate welfare in the worst stadium funding deal in existence, and decided against creating what could have been a vital piece of public infrastructure to renew the region for decades.
MetroMoves would have created one of the best public transit systems in the Midwest. It really is sad to think about what could have been.
The main problem with greater Cincinnati isn’t the public transport. It’s the thoughtless land development. There are too many jurisdictions eager to turn their farmland into more sprawl. Look at what has happened to West Chester in the last 20 years. Sure, OTR has rebounded a bit, but the long-term trend in the region is away from density and toward sprawl. And there seems to be no regional interest in doing anything about it. No streetcar is going to fix that.
It would've taken 30 years and raised taxes. The reason it didn't happen is because people were reminded of what happened when we built the stadium and how taxes were raised with the promise of going back down after. The taxes never went back down.
@@YourAverageReviews public infrastructure takes investment and time. the road and highway infrastructure that replaced it also require public funds, but those costs-even if they might have been greater in the long run-aren’t as salient, nor are they put under the same scrutiny
I've boycotted everything nfl since the city was extorted by the Bengals. If your item has any nfl logo , I won't buy it.
Cincinnatian here, we have an abandoned subway tunnel that is decaying, and actually completing it will take so many cars off the road. The reason theres so many drivers because the streetcar doesn't leave downtown, and the metro system is unreliable.
I use the 275 loop. Yes, you’re driving more but at least you’re still moving.
You are the missing link of all urbanist channels on TH-cam! Awesome work, thank you!
I commute over the brent spence daily. This video has missed the primary problem. Semis. Almost all of the traffic is caused by trucks going up and down 75. The cut in the hill (the 3 mile stretch of 75 in ky) is a steep grade with too sharp of curves for a highway as it navigates the geography. Trucks go too fast down the hill and often crash. Trucks go too slow (20 mph) up the hill and there is a breakdown every other day. This can close a lane and cause a 40 minute delay over the bridge. Southbound over the bridge the signage states that no trucks are allowed in the left 2 lanes (though this isnt ever enforced, so the 20 mph trucks can be in all four lanes) Those left 2 lanes come from 71 S. So trucks must merge right two lanes on an unsafe bridge. My father in law was sideswiped two days ago on an onramp to the brent spence. It is a nightmare and every day there is an accident or breakdown on or around the brent spence.
I’m all for expanding the wonderful streetcar and getting commuter rail or better yet, finished the subway we abandoned a half century ago, but the main safety and time problem is the semi’s passing through cincinnati, not the commuters. Maybe a truck bypass would be cheaper, and I would support that, but it’s the trucks necessitating a new bridge.
Two years ago a truck crashed on the bridge and caught fire, closing it for weeks. It was pandemonium. The single point of failure for the entire region cannot continue if the city is to grow into the best version of herself.
As a semi driver who crossed the bridge just about a week ago, I understand your pain well. There was a jam from a broken-down semi blocking the left lane onto 71, and even with traffic moving at a crawl I was nervous about causing a wreck from drifting into another lane.
new streetcraft video we cheered!!
We did this in louisville, KY. We added another bridge next to one that was functionally obsolete. Split it so each bridge now handles traffic only going in one direction. The solution is amazing, no more traffic jams ever on either bridge.
The $5 toll surely helps.
Love the videos on my hometown. Hopefully they can do something nice for the west side.
Fr my father works at that airport lol
Excellent work! Sadly, Cincinnati has a history of rejecting public transit projects. There are the historic abandoned Cincinnati Subway tunnels, but there was also a plan in the early 2000s called "Metro Moves" that would have developed commuter and light rail from downtown into the suburbs. The half-cent sales tax was voted down by a 2-1 margin by Hamilton County voters in the 2002 election, sadly. They built a transit center under the new Fort Washington Way in 2000, but it's essentially the new abandoned subway for the 21st century, used mostly for school groups visiting the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. Hopefully they can build extensions of the streetcar across the river and into more neighborhoods, although of course it's limited in capacity by having to share right-of-way with cars.
The subway wasn’t rejected. It ran out of money because of mismanagement and corruption.
And don't forget the canal system that preceded the subway. Now Central Parkway is a bike path with a street running through the center.
Good video.
Cincinnati has an existing, very useful bus system that can get you to and from the airport, to downtown, and up to the university all without adding a vehicle to the road. Seems like people get so caught up on rail and don't consider the bus.
The streetcar is fine but doesn't have signal priority, doesn't have separate lanes. So it's actually less useful than a bus because it has no ability to change lanes to dodge traffic. And it's frequency is not as good as the main bus lines!
As a lifelong Daytonian, this is one of the most dangerous bridges in the US. While I'm just travelling through, I-75 is a critical highway and needs to be protected while respecting the neighborhoods and people living there. I-75 has been under construction between Dayton and Cincinnati for 20+ years...they need to get the master plan done and stop the never ending construction season.
Exactly. Like it takes me like 30 minutes just to get to work
The usual reason projects like this take forever is money. It's the same reason why the Link Light Rail around Seattle is taking so many decades to complete, doing it faster is possible, but would be a lot more expensive. Plus, it's being built from the core out, so the longer it goes, you start getting to areas that don't have as strong of a case to justify the excess spending to speed that portion up.
As a University of Cincinnati student living in Covington, KY, and commuting on this bridge daily, there is absolutely no need for a new bridge at the expense of our city centers. They've historically destroyed our city enough. Bring ring back more housing in the West End, invest in commuter rail, and expect traffic congestion during rush hour if you drive a car.
I’d love to see the streetcar expanded across the river and further north.
It's STUPID to commute from another state. I wish they would make it a toll bridge to discourage the idiots who do so.
As a former cinci resident, now Chicago resident. The traffic across the bridge is not that bad. 10-15 minute delays at most. What makes it bad are all of the interstate commuters who dive through the city to go from one suburb to another
We need to reinvest in our railroads nationwide, period. And for those of you who think we need special tracks for new high-speed trains, news flash: Back in the 1940s and 50s, we had passenger trains rolling over pre-existing mainlines at 90-100 MPH...with freakin steam locomotives pulling them!
@@thunderbird1921and how would that help people that say, live in Covington and work in blue ash?
That train would have to stop every 2-3 minutes, and it would take forever to get to blue ash.
I don't understand why the highway runs through the middle of town. In the civilized world, highways run outside cities and are only connected to cities.
The new bridge should have been built somewhere completely outside of the city and connected to the existing highways and then greatly reduce the existing highways in the city...
That was my first thought. Why is this monstrosity in the city center at all? I don't know what traffic is like in the region, but without this data, the logical solution is to redirect the traffic passing through to 275 and discourage driving through the city by lowering the standard of the road
@@Gebbeth, Perhaps, building a highway in the middle of a city when the main roads can't cope with traffic is a thing that seems logical (just one more line...), and the illogicality of which is revealed only upon further reflection. Plus, I think back in the day when entire neighborhoods were being torn down for highways in the US, there wasn't too much global experience saying it was a bad idea (but I'm not sure, to be honest). Well, at least even I tried to do this at first in Cuties Skylines, but obviously it didn’t work even there, lol
Geography is a bitch. Cincinnati was built because the Ohio River is relatively narrow there, and a river valley in Kentucky breaks the line of 50 to 100 meter high bluffs on the Kentucky side of the river. Note how far out the I-275 bridges are from downtown. The Brent Spence bridge also carries a lot of local traffic from the Ohio side to the Kentucky side.
What a ridiculous comment. The bridge is already there. If you want to know why it is there, you can just read some history. Then you would also know there is already a full ring road around the city, including other bridges over the river. Thus building a new bridge somewhere else not only does nothing to fix the problem of the existing urban highway, it also does nothing to create a new alternative to the existing urban highway. You’re proposed solution does literally nothing to solve any of the problems at hand.
It was built because of the common American thought during 50s: building large highways for cars, living far from work and you know.
Just gonna throw this out there but this comes down to National Defense. They'll always rebuild something to handle military logistics better first and foremost.
And yes, if there was a war, the Feds have the power to ban you from the Interstates at the drop of a hat. Look into it
Having a heavy rail connection to the airport would be a great connection.
Earlier then later this bridge had to get replaced. A tunnel would probably cost 10 times more.
Quite often we get calls for moving major roads and highways Underground.
Has there ever been a serious consideration of building a tunnel under the River?
13:15 I like how there are Škoda RegioPanter EMUs with Czech Railways livery in the render. One has just one car for some reason and the other has no space between the cars for bending.
And the catenary is way too small, so the trains don't fit under it. And those trains seem to be on the same track. The longer you look at that render the weirder it gets.
That's the nature of a "representational" photo illustration at the early conceptual phase of any project. Convey the essential idea and worry about the details later.
@@Urbanhandyman Yeah, I understand why that is. It is just funny to me.
I'd love for you to do a video on the replacement of the Cape Cod Bridges.
This project seems eerily similar to the I-5 Bridge spanning between Washington and Oregon. Same problems on an incredibly outdated and dilapidated bridge
As a member of Bridge Forward, thanks for the shout out! We worked hard to bring a new lens to this project. We looked at both sides of the river, and the NKY side could have been shrunk, too.
The root of the problem with all of these projects is that state roadway designers (Both KYTC and ODOT) simply have one job defined by the mandate that created them: BUILD MORE ROADS. We need to work in two ways: 1. Keep pressure on projects being designed now to make them better, but further, work toward changing the foundational DOT laws that talk only about roads.
Appreciate this video and your research as a Cincy resident!
If you take video suggestions, I’d encourage you to look into the I-5 rose quarter project in Portland Oregon, at its current state it’s a two way battle between state DOT with a budged shortfall planning to widen the interstate through a historic black neighborhood, and advocates fighting to have the (already trenched) interstate capped instead, there’s federal money on both sides further complicating the issue and has become a big deal in advocacy here
That and a video about the proposed replacement of the Interstate Bridge across the Columbia would both make for excellent videos.
@@jonathankleinow2073 "proposed" dont make me laugh
I have to say, as someone that has traveled across the Brent Spence hundreds if not thousands of times in my life I have never seen the project summed up so well that a layman like myself could understand even an inkling of the issue. Very well done video and thank you!
Lived here for 15 years and this is the clearest, most comprehensive explanation of this mess I've seen.
If you see the picture @9:18 you could also wonder why their is a road crossing a circle, can't be much of local traffic (if you look at the on/offramps provided).
So maybe not building infra on high demand area end letting i275 manage the trough traffic, so you could disconnect the highways within the circle?
Because Truckers are directed to keep their miles to a minimum. Taking I-275 around Cincinnati to link back up adds 15-20 miles of travel.
Reconnect? Queens gate and camp Washington are industrial areas. Plus there is flood danger in a lot of the queens gate area.
Ft Washington way didn't cut access to the river front. That area was once rail lines that got moved when union terminal was built. Plus thats a flood zone. Everything south of it has to be protected from the 1937 flood level. Which is why the staduims have the entrances so high up.
As a truck driver, during what I consider peak times, it's faster to take 275 around, that way I'm still moving and not sitting in traffic, especially out of state traffic or semi's when can't negotiate the hill northbound without riding their brakes.
As a Cincinnati native, I'm happy to have a safer/wider bridge across the river. It's terrifying to not have any breakdown lanes on that bridge. Your "better solutions" has a very narrow focus on regional OKI. I75 is also a major north-south corridor between MI and FL, and the regional solutions won't really touch that. Coming up with a comprehensive solution would involve the federal, 2 state, and multiple city/county governments, and when have they every worked well together? Just look back at the video intro, and it's taken this long to just get to this point.
very compelling video!! really makes clear what expanding a highway means and how it compares to other ways of addressing the problem of too much traffic
This is basically another highway widening project that won’t fix traffic at all, and instead worsen it. What a waste of money!
An absolutely great video with so many details!
Thanks!
They should have a Metro link with Pedestrain and Cycle paths connecting this cities.
We have old bridges that are setup for this, if they would just maintain them. Look up Purple People Bridge.
The bus service from covington and newport to downtown is fine. We have 2 nice foot and bike bridges that work well.
@@fyrfyter33 The problem is that neither state or city wants to foot the bill. If politicians would work together and split the work, infrastructure like the Purple People Bridge wouldn't be literally crumbling.
Yep. That's a great idea! Let's double the cost of it. That will only mean higher taxes for residents of Cincinnati/Covington in the long run. Btw, for the people that cross that bridge twice a day, they would love to pay a toll for that!
The streetcar mention around the 13-14 minute mark. REAL. BRING BACK THE STREET CAR! Cincinnati used to have one of the largest streetcar networks, and now it is a dinky loop around downtown.
$148M for that streetcar downtown and no one rides it.
@@FordGT8806 Because who needs to ONLY go from Findlay Market to the Banks? It's not extensive enough to have good use, especially when the majority of those who work downtown drive in from the suburbs.
The Kenyon-Barr Neighborhood Is Where Queensgate Is Located In Now. 💯
Both cities should work on a streetcar network and have a rail connection to the airport.
This will for sure improve living conditions by a lot.
This might be an option to scale down those peojects in the future.
Foot and bicycle bridges should get build to allow people to cross this major river.
We have two bridges that are foot and bike, and a third that is usable as such. The main issue is trucks going from atlanta to detroit passing through.
The new bridge will double the number of lanes going in each direction
Great video. I came across the bridge forward project a couple years ago and all i could think was how great it would be for the city. You did a great job of summarizing everything and hopefully it will help people realize what a important opportunity this is for the city.
here’s an idea: build a new freeway segment from the I-71/75 split at Walton, KY to the I-471 terminus at N-KY Univ. (roughly along the KY-16 corridor), then redirect I-71 onto this new segment as well as former I-471. there you go, now you don’t have to put a giant spaghetti interchange in your downtown core. in fact, with this setup we could remove the I-71 waterfront segment in cincinnati altogether.
Tunnels... why they can't make it?
A few years ago there was a proposal of constructing a bypass from I-75 at Williamstown KY to I-275 East. Though I don't follow these issues as closely as some of you do, a new route may well be the best solution to lowering traffic through NKy and downtown Cincinnati. Is that proposal gaining consideration?
So just passing the buck to Ky while unnecessarily spending money?
THANK FOR YOU HIGHLIGHTING THIS!!!! We need more support about this waste of money.
I designed a whole system to solve the problem, including light rail and greatly reducing the highway’s footprint
They need to redo all the highways in Cincinnati.
It's obvious from the comments and from the terrain work that people of greater Cincinnati want better transit options. 3.6B could literally change the entire city. Rather, they are destroying more Covington, adding noise and air pollution, and spending billions of dollars to add more lanes - in 2020s. What? Are traffic engineers okay?
The progressive left believes a wand can be waved, and traffic will simply disappear.
You can't make judgments about what people want from a YT comments section. This is a creator that attracts urbanists or would-be urbanists. Your average proud suburbanite isn't going to comment here.
That said, Cincinnati's metro expanse is vast. More people in the area live in the outlying suburbs than in the city limits itself. Those people do not care nor want a public transit system because short of utilizing mass-transit helicopters, you're proposing adding a couple hours to people's commute everyday. No one in Mason, Milford, Florence, etc is willing to do that.
I have a hard time understanding why the United States insists on putting highways through city centers. Here the city has a beautiful bypass, wouldn't it be better to have transit traffic pass through the bypass, to ban heavy goods vehicles on the bridge except for access to the city center, to use the I75 and I71 as a thoroughfare and to transform them into an urban boulevard around the city center on which a tram can be added and a cycle path, and to build a passenger station (which they don't seem to have in Chichinati) in the useless buildings of the industrial zone next to the tracks. Thus the narrow lanes of the bridge limit the size of vehicles in the city center and this development, due to its capacity and speed, removes the desire to go through here to cross Chichinati and the station allows for the development of suburban and intercity trains to reduce traffic on the highway. One of the bridges of Chichinati can also be made pedestrian in passing in order to connect the two banks and with the transformation of the old highway bridge into a local bridge it will replace it. At a pinch the construction of a bridge to the west towards the airport for local traffic could be interesting with the development of an access avenue. I do not know if my reasoning is too European to be adequate or just the United States cannot do without its highways in the city center.
1:25 wow, I never realised how huger US motorway lanes are! Our motorway lanes are between 7ft2 and 9ft10! (2.2m-3m)! It’s wild to me that 11ft could feel narrow to anyone!
Yeah we unfortunately have too many large trucks on the road, both commercial and regular people to where they basically cannot fit in a lot of places
The average American semi truck is 8.5 ft wide, while European semis (freight trucks) are usually 8 ft, according to one company I saw. I realize that .5 ft isn't a lot, but there's probably a significant number wider than that, and I guess us americans like our space on the roads.
Your lanes are only 2.2m-3m?
That is so narrow it’s scary!
Where are you?
Huger??
@@truckercowboyed2638
Haha! We know what OP meant, but it’s still funny.
Not sure anyone has found the best solution for getting traffic moving between Cincinnati and NKY, but thank you for sharing. At least there is some funding available and options for plans. It’s the closest we’ve ever been to getting something done.
I live in the Northern Kentucky Area, so I’ve been passing over this bridge for many years. I can confirm that this bridge is safe and doesn’t really cause many problems. I don’t really think they should add the new bridge, mostly because I’m so used to the Brent Spence bridge and how to go around on it
I am also from NKy, though I left the area a very long time ago. The Brent Spence opened the weekend Kennedy was shot (11/22/1963). Like very many Northern Kentuckians at the time, my father worked across the River. The bridge has always been inadequate. With a month of its opening my father complained, "I'd like to shoot the (expletive deleted) engineer who designed the Brent Spence Bridge. There's only one free lane into Kentucky!" That's why there are four lanes instead of the original three.
$3.6 billion to build a bridge that just pushes the problem a decade later. Yet when Cincy tried to build an expansive transit network 2 decades ago costing $2.6 billion (roughly $4.5 billion now) that would’ve funded 5 light rail lines and 1 or 2 regional rail lines there’s not enough money.
What is the program you use to edit and "paint over" existing streets?
Adobe Illustrator and After Effects
Litterally all US cities history: „Once, city x had a big and dense urban core that was very livable. But when Interstate y was built, they destroyed much of the city, especially neighbourhood z, a largely black neighbourhood, and today the urban core is small with just a couple of office buildings.”
The fact that I-471 isn't being looked at to just divert all traffic that is planning to continue on I-71 towards Columbus away from the Brent Spence Bridge really frustrates me. It seems completely pointless to carry I-75 and I-71 over the Brent Spence Bridge today. I forever have personally felt the merger of I-71 and I-75 to be pointless for more than a few miles. I-71 traffic could be merged into I-275 on the Kentucky side and then exit on the current I-471 to travel towards Columbus. Eliminating I-471 completely and also eliminating anyway for through I-71 traffic to cross the Brent Spence Bridge. I take this path currently when I am traveling home from Kentucky to avoid the bridge and it's only a few miles longer but usually less time due to the back up on the Brent Spence Bridge. I understand the need to justify the efforts to run I-71 through the city after the work done over the years but it wasn't the best move 25 years ago, just own it.
I LOVE THE CINCY CONTENT! So cool to see my city getting recognition, even if its not the best way
One of the best cities in the country
Road Guy Rob would have a field day with this
Bet he's gonna be in Kentucky soon
Better idea: Using the Daniel Carter Beard Bridge of the 471 as new 71 and connect 75 and 71 via 275. Then there is no need to connect 75 and 71 downtown.
YEA
i think they should merge the 71 into the 75 north of the entire metro area, either by cutting the 71 off at the 275 or by rerouting it south of lebanon to get to the 75 while it's still in a rural area. i know nothing about traffic patterns here cuz i'm not from here so this might not be the best solution, but it'll get rid of at least 17 miles of interstate and finish connecting downtown with the waterfront
Yeah terrible take, there is literally no major roads that would get you from Lebanon to cincy without adding 2 hours onto a already 45 min drive. 75 daily is more crowded than 71, adding anymore traffic would create more havoc. The surrounding area's like Lebanon, Mason, Hamilton have 200+ thousand residents that need 71 to commute. We can't use backroads because they don't exist going to cincy
What they need to do is force thru traffic (especially semis) to use 275. Most of the traffic that passes through cincinnati is not local. (I imagine that's why the new plan basically has them bypass the city). They could spend the money fixing intersections with 275 that would account for the extra traffic load and then also work on the collector system by union terminal. Most of the grid just connects or ends at 75 instead of continuing through it. Just like the did with 71
An all-modes (car, truck, train/tram, pedestrian, bicycle) replacement bridge versus just another automotive bridge is obviously the answer. Unfortunately that would the least likely scenario.
Cincy resident here! I had no idea this was happening! Awesome!! 👏 👏 👏
3:50
Little car meet happening over there.
I seriously don’t get how governments don’t understand that more lanes, given four years, usually means more traffic. Like that’s the fundamental basics of urban design knowledge
I am from this area. The obstacles to the bridge project were A) Aquiring the land. B) Ohio wanted a toll system, Kentucky did not. Federal funding has been there, but the two states were not on the same page about how this project was to move forward.
Btw sounds like the creator of the video has no real knowledge of this project or the transportation systems of this area and is just parroting what they are reading. There is plenty of pedestrian/ bicycle paths over the river. The interstate on the Kentucky side is not a problem. The Brent Spence Bridge is an aging structure that needs to be expanded to support the traffic it receives. It is part of a major artery of commercial transportation. Only time congestion really happens is due to accidents or construction. The author of this video is clueless throwing around numbers they picked up from somebody else and has no real comprehension of the situation.
travelling ohioan here. i hated this bridge so much it made me hate cincinatti as a whole, im so glad it’s getting fixed. rush hour traffic would clog EVERYTHING up
Looking at the highway system on google maps. I wonder why they wont just demolish the I71 and I75 through Cincinnati anyways and just diverge all interstate traffic towards the I275. I checked for a route from Florence KY to South Lebanon, OH and it only added 7 minutes of travel time... Is it really worth destroying the urban fabric of a city for just 7 minutes?
Because of how far away and long 275 is. It would add a lot of extra mileage to any trip through Cincinnati, and its too far away to be of much use to local traffic.
@@1000rogueleader In my opinion, thru traffic should have to deal with it (previous commenter also said it only added 7 minutes), and local traffic can use local roads, which really brings us back to the issue of having better alternatives to cars.
Keep I-75, reroute I-71 to the beltway. Remove downtown I-71 stretch. I-471 and northern stretch of formerly I-71 will become spur routes
@@1000rogueleader you could continue a highway until downtown Cincinnati to connect local traffic.
But the city should not have to care for through-traffic. They destroy the city, emitting loads of noise and air pollution, while giving no benefits at all. Like I said, half the downtown area is destroyed for just a 7 min time save for traffic going through Cincinnati. I am just wondering if that's really worth it...
@@maroon9273or just reroute i71 over the 471 bridge which drops right onto 275 in Kentucky. From there it’s an easy crossover to continue on I75. No new bridge needed
As someone who has to travel this bridge to get to a from work, daily. Yes I take it southbound in the morning, and northbound in the evening. And you hit the nail on the head with 99.9% of what you said. The Street Car is a failure, no on rides it.
More highway capacity will always induce some demand ... The only thing that actually solves traffic is options. More paths, more routes, more modes, mode destinations.
Fantastic video. Perfectly encapsulates local frustrations and daily challenges.
As someone from the Netherlands I have to say; what a horrible grotesque design...
It needs to be a toll bridge which would divert traffic to other less busy bridges in the area. There’s an old study that shows it would solve the congestion problem
Will spend billions on highways but zero on rail America is ass backwards
It's the South they never will have rail
@@highlymedicated2438 Ohio is hardly the south
@@highlymedicated2438Ohio is the midwest, bud
@@highlymedicated2438Ohio is the Midwest, plus the South is one of the regions that use rail the most
@@highlymedicated2438 Cincinnati is in Ohio. In no universe is Ohio a part of Dixie. Even Maryland has a greater claim to that.
Just because something is ass backwards doesn’t automatically mean it’s the South.
My biggest complaint is that they already shut down the Covington pool since the new bridge will tear through it. It was free for residents and such a short walk from my house that I could just hop over there on my lunch break. I miss it already
13:18 So weird seeing a RegioPanter so out of place xD
RegioPanter tram. The Škoda RegioPanter T.
Great video. I think all of the responses calling for streetcar or pedestrian bridges are not paying attention to the fact that most of the traffic crossing the bridge is not local. It’s consumer traffic, or semis. So adding those options for locals are cute to say the least, but even if a new bridge had 5 lanes in each direction with pedestrian access on each side, we would still have a massive singular choke point in an increasingly vibrant downtown area of a major city. We would just have a few people walking across it. The real issue is semi trucks moving goods. They should be diverted to the perimeter of the city (275) unless making a local delivery or pickup. They would never see the Cut in the Hill where they have to slow to go down or struggle to get up.
YEA that is what Atlanta does
Cincinnati is notoriously hilly and has about 4 months if decent biking weather per year. The seasons are cold-pleasant-hot and humid-pleasant-cold and we get 45 inches of precipitation a year. Biking as a mode of practical transport isn't and will never be a thing. And the streetcar is essentially a novelty (think San Francisco cable cars) and a means of practical transport for very few.
u do realize people bike just fine in cities with mountains in the middle of them in other parts of the world right.. like cincinnatis hills aren't really all that crazy to bike on
@@e621_ Some cities have favorable geography for commuter biking. Flat, moderate weather, and compact. Cincinnati has none of those.
@@nunyabidness117 people bike in portland oregon, it's rainy all the time, really icy in the winter, and now incredibly hot in the summer thanks to climate change. If it's convenient people will bike, and portland made it convenient.
If people in norway can bike i'm sure Cincinnati can handle it... it's not like it's a requirement to do it...
I'd like to introduce you to Chicago. A city without temperate weather and sprawl for miles from the northside to downtown. I biked all over that city, and thousands of others do. Biking in Cincy COULD be a practical solution if it were built to accommodate it AND if drivers didn't feel that they were entitled to the roadways.
@@nkycardcollector sorry its just impossible to ride a bicycle in cincinnati, people in the area have been driving since the dawn of man, even in the late 1600s during british rule people drove. no other way up those hills. absolutely no way.
Thank you so much for making a high quality & informative on this crucial infrastructure project!
I-75 in northern kentucky going north goes from 4 lanes to 3 lanes to back to 4 lanes. Every workday morning for the last 60 years it jams up. It isnt a matter of, 'oh if we build 5 lanes they will just fill 5 lanes'. It has always been woefully undersized since traffic studies in the early 60's were in their infancy. Developable farmland in Cincinnati starts 25 miles north and maybe 10 miles south and the bridge has constructed development for decades. Northern Kentucky is not one large cohesive downtown as is Cincinnati but dozens and dozens of small towns grown together. Covington is on the east side of I-75 and Villa Hills, Park Hills, and Ludlow in the other. Losing a few dozen low-grade houses will not matter.
I really enjoy your videos. Keep going 👍 subscribed
Finally!!!
Do both! Build the new bridge with a bunch of lanes for through traffic, *and* build public transit options so people don't have to drive.
Three words: FUND PUBLIC TRANSIT
My favorite part is coming down through town on 71 and knowing that the river is to your left the whole time and that you’re going to have to cross it, again it’s on your left, only to have the speed limit drop to hard stop for a hard right swerve, I guess you could call it a curve, (on a freeway) and then tight loop back the opposite direction. Between two concrete walls and other vehicles hitting this spot with you all at once.
complete waste of money, traffic only viable solution is to densify, if you dont like it then move to villages, adding lanes and building bigger roads just leads to larger distances between buildings, more parking, more gas stations, shops etc... a death spiral, even a toddler should be able to comprehend this.
not saying roads shouldnt be built, but limit them to 2 small lanes at most inside city with 4lanes as collectors to get in and out the city, everything else should use high density transport(bus/train/bike/walking).
and finaly END strict zoning laws and allow mixed usage, limit zoning laws to below 10 in the entire country with all of them mixed to varying degrees, not the current 1000+ zoning laws.
Rerouting through traffic with the 275 seems like the easiest solution for alleviating traffic, especially since most of that traffic doesn't even go downtown. Just seems silly to me that they route people directly downtown just to get past it.
After the jackknifed hazmat trailer crashed on the Brent Spence a couple years ago at night when not very many drivers were on the bridge it became very apparent the bridge was too dangerous. It closed the bridge for weeks. The Texas Turnaround they implemented on the Kentucky side helped alleviate the root cause of this, cars forced to merge multiple lanes aggressively in front of semis, but it is still a tragedy waiting for a date with destiny at its current 4x11ft decks. I drive this bridge daily commuting, and every single time I feel like I'm in a demolition derby race with my little Kia hamster car boxed in by semis.
That said, when major infrastructure changes are made I know it's really tough for those geographically impacted. Growing pains in a city are not simple feats and there's rarely a solution where everyone wins.
Let's just get the damned thing built. In 2002 I worked for a design firm that went with ODOT to negotiate with KDOT and the price was going to be in the high hundred millions. With every change of location or added side streets additional environmental impact studies have to be done which add time and time adds money. I almost forgot the historical studies. LETS JUST GO before the bridge needs to be refurbished again.
only america would spend billions to avoid trains
We had an extensive train system, but ppl stopped using them as personal automotives became affordable.
Who hates the bridge? I'm from Ohio Cincinnati and I've never heard anyone hate on the bridge but people who have never seen it before. It's old, and it's cool. It's not uncomfortable to drive on and it makes you appreciate how the Rust belt used to look/function back in the old days.
Yep before good paying bread and butter jobs were outsourced.
It’s crazy how much real estate we’ve given up for cars…
Years ago Kentucky wanted a new bridge for I-71, eliminating both expressways using the Brent Spence Bridge. But Ohio rejected it. It left many people scratching their heads.
The gets things done administration is the one that actually put meaningful money into making this happen. Making it happen better is a great thing, too! After all, the theme has been: Build Back Better.
The biggest problem now is the I-75 approach from the north. The interstate goes from 5 lanes down to 2 to cross the bridge. A back occurs sometimes reaching a half mile. A large percentage of the traffic is through trucks. Dedicated express lanes could go a long way to getting the trucks out of the mix.
There is no easy answer tho. Cincy's interstate system is notoriously clogged everywhere you look.
Thank you for producing such a thorough and accurate video about this project. I am a Cincinnatian and urbanist who has been closely following the BSB project for the past two decades and there has been so much misinformation about the project in our local media and among the general population. It is often referred to as the “Brent Spence Bridge replacement” which is inaccurate since the current bridge will be kept and a second bridge built next to it. Much of the propaganda from the state DOTs strongly implied that the original bridge is structurally unsound and this has led to the totally inaccurate public perception that it’s about to fall into the river. This video will be the new place I send people for accurate information about the project.
There hasn’t been a regional light rail plan for Greater Cincinnati since the failure of the MetroMoves proposal in 2002. We should be using this as an opportunity to come up with a new plan that includes light rail and commuter rail, but unfortunately the leadership at OKI (our local MPO) has totally dropped the ball.
I love driving through downtown Cincy on 71. I live near Columbus and Cincy seems to flow better through its downtown than Columbus does. The best part of the trip is when you are in KY and going north on the 71/75 interstate and you pop over the hill and suddenly Cincy appears in all its glory. It is one of the best entrances into a city anywhere in the US, especially at night. I don't mind the BS bridge; the hint of danger makes you feel alive.