LOUISVILLE, KY. (WDRB) -- The Louisville and Southern Indiana Bridges Authority is meeting for the first time since October. It's a standing-room-only crowd at the Kentucky International Convention Center in downtown Louisville.
"We have to have some final agreement on some finer points of the financing plan," Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer told the Bridges Authority at the opening of the meeting, "we hope it will be forthcoming during the next several weeks."
The meeting is also the first one since it was announced last week that Kentucky and Indiana will split the construction and cost of two Ohio River bridges and the rebuilding of Spaghetti Junction.
"The construction process could start this year," says the mayor, "we are now into 2012 so it could start at the end of this year."
Indiana will build the east end bridge, and Kentucky the downtown bridge at a cost of $2.6 billion, which is cheaper than previously announced. The authority is expected to finalize its financial plan by the end of this month, and that plan will have to be approved by the Kentucky General Assembly.
Since the two bridges will be built at the same time completion of the project will come much sooner than originally planned.
"We talk about completion of the project by 2018, that is what this community is longing for," says Kerry Stemler, the co-chairman of the Bridges Authority.
While the cost is not has high in the past to build the project, Stemler says tolls will still be part of the plan. "The two states will put significant money into the project, but tolls will still be a piece of the project," he says.
Stemler acknowledges that the closing of the Sherman Minton Bridge about 4 months ago because a crack was found has given the Ohio River Bridges project a new sense of urgency.
"We are all living in a condition with congestion and safety issues that no citizen in any community in this country should have to tolerate," he says.
Those following the process are somewhat frustrated that there is still not a detailed plan to look and to study.
"I actually came out as a citizen to try and learn where we are now in this project," says Tyler Allen who was a Democratic candidate for mayor, "and I come away from this authority meeting with no idea where we now stand."
Stemler hopes a final financial plan will be made public by the authority in about 30 days. He says once it is sent to the Kentucky General Assembly he expects it will be approved by lawmakers and ground can be broker before this new year ends.
