Without a Trump infrastructure plan, an aging Kentucky-Ohio bridge is in limbo

CINCINNATI — Many cities have a notorious choke point that torments commuters and keeps urban planners awake at night. In Cincinnati, it is the Brent Spence Bridge, a 1960s structure that straddles the Ohio-Kentucky border.

It is creaky and rust stained. It is known for traffic jams and car crashes. People who live in both states avoid it if they can.

“I’m scared to drive over it,” Emily Essell said recently as she visited a park near the bridge. She said that she rolls down her windows when she crosses the bridge so that she can escape if her car falls into the Ohio River.

The bridge, which could cost $2.5 billion to fix, has bedeviled politicians for decades. And then four days before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump came to Ohio and promised to replace it.

So far, that has not happened. The bridge is one of the many critical projects across the country that have been in limbo as Trump’s calls for a big infrastructure plan have not gone anywhere.

Now that Democrats have won the House, infrastructure could be back on the table. The day after the midterm elections, Trump said he wanted to work with Democrats on the issue. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic House leader, says it is one of her top priorities, and left-leaning new members like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ayanna Pressley have also called for a focus on infrastructure.

“We have a lot of things in common on infrastructure,” Trump said of his willingness to work with Democrats.

Over the last two years, dozens of projects have been paralyzed without federal funding, including a $13 billion plan to build a train tunnel between New York and New Jersey. Both the Brent Spence Bridge and the tunnel were on a list of infrastructure priorities leaked by Trump officials last year. This week, a spokeswoman for the White House did not respond to requests for comment on replacing the bridge.

For train riders and drivers who are forced to rely on crumbling bridges and tunnels, help cannot come soon enough. In Ohio, there are calls from both parties to fix the bridge, and most leaders agree that it will require federal funding and tolls. The state’s incoming governor, Mike DeWine, a Republican, has avoided blaming Trump directly for the lack of action and instead called on Congress to pass an infrastructure bill.

But Cincinnati’s mayor, John Cranley, has repeatedly criticized the president for failing to fix the bridge.

“President Trump made a promise, and he has done nothing to advance the promise that he made,” Cranley, a Democrat, said in an interview.

“The engineers say it has another 10 to 15 years,” Cranley said of the bridge. “We shouldn’t get close to the wire on that.”

Huge infrastructure projects are often paid for by a mix of federal and local money. Cranley said leaders in Ohio were offering to pay for the local share with tolls, even though the idea of tolling such a heavily used bridge has been controversial. During the governor’s race, DeWine said tolls had to be part of the solution, though elected officials in Kentucky have opposed them.

A two-level structure with no shoulder and where several routes merge, the bridge is already dangerous. An eight-car crash in 2014 sent one car hurtling off the top deck, falling 25 feet to the bottom deck.

The Brent Spence has been listed as “functionally obsolete” in the federal bridge inventory since the 1990s. State officials have proposed overhauling the existing bridge and building a new one next to it.

During the 2016 election, both Trump and Hillary Clinton pledged to spend billions of dollars on infrastructure, and voters approved dozens of local ballot measures to improve transportation. But infrastructure failed to register as a major national issue in the midterm elections, though problems like road conditions were a factor in some races.

“It isn’t an issue that motivates voters to go to the polls,” said Edward G. Rendell, a former Pennsylvania governor who leads a national infrastructure advocacy group. “But it’s an issue most voters support.”

In Ohio, the Brent Spence Bridge — named for a longtime congressman from Kentucky — is so important that a Democratic candidate for governor was lampooned for not knowing about it during an April debate. “I don’t know about your bridge,” the candidate said when a moderator raised the issue. “Yeesh,” a story in The Cincinnati Enquirer said. “This calls for multiple face-palm emojis.”

Built in 1963 to carry 80,000 vehicles per day, the bridge now handles more than 170,000 vehicles each day. It is a critical link between the states and carries Interstate 75, a major U.S. highway running from Michigan to Florida. Traffic on the bridge is so bad that some Uber drivers avoid taking it to Cincinnati from the city’s closest airport across the state line in Kentucky, even though it is the most direct route.

A constellation of local leaders agree the bridge needs to be fixed, including Mitch McConnell, the Senate majority leader who is from Kentucky and is married to Elaine Chao, the federal transportation secretary. Chao declined requests to discuss whether the federal government should have a role in fixing the bridge. Her office provided a statement saying that the federal transportation department was willing to help Kentucky and Ohio with the project by offering “technical assistance” or by helping them find “innovative solutions.”

On a recent afternoon, Cincinnati’s riverfront was filled with families. A giant Ferris wheel and two gleaming sports stadiums made the Brent Spence Bridge appear shabby by comparison.

“If our engineers are saying it needs to be fixed, then Trump needs to fulfill his promise and cough up the money,” said Judy Lee, a home health care nurse who voted for Clinton.

Still, Trump won Kentucky and Ohio. Many of his supporters are loyal.

“It ain’t fallen down yet,” Paul Moore, a contractor and Trump supporter, said of the bridge.

While Moore said he wants Trump to find a way to fix the bridge, he firmly supports the president’s broader agenda. “He’s taken the non-PC route,” he said, in reference to political correctness.

Alan Montague, a Trump voter who is retired, said he supported Republicans in the midterms because the economy was doing well. Like others in the region, he worries about the bridge.

“There’s no question it’s obsolete,” he said. “It’s extremely dangerous.”

But Ohio and Kentucky should help the federal government pay for a new one, Montague said.

“I don’t like handouts from the government,” he said. “Even if it’s for myself.”