Was your commute easier this morning? Well, it may have been because the Brent Spence Bridge is finally fully open.
Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky drivers have been dealing with lane closures, delays and traffic for over eight months.
In March, the bridge closed half of its lanes for maintenance. The project finished Monday, over a week ahead of schedule.
Several lanes and ramps on the bridge, which the American Transportation Research Institute named the No. 2 bottleneck for freight trucks in the entire nation, were closed throughout the last eight months for routine maintenance.
The Brent Spence Bridge, a major connector between Cincinnati and Covington, has become less and less efficient for transportation over the years. A website for the bridge’s 2017 maintenance project states that the structure was originally built to carry 80,000-100,000 vehicles per day, but traffic in recent years has doubled to 160,000-180,000 vehicles each day.
In November of 2020, the Brent Spence Bridge was closed for about six weeks due to two semi-trucks crashing and causing a chemical spill and massive fire. The closure caused major disruptions for commuters across the region until it reopened in December.
Earlier this year bridge’s emergency repair project was nominated for a People’s Choice Award from America’s Transportation Awards (ATA).
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