No tolls promised as funding unveiled for Brent Spence Bridge project in northern Kentucky

COVINGTON, Ky. (WDRB) -- No tolls are promised as the Brent Spence Bridge project got a bipartisan boost from President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

In the shadow of the troubled bridge, Biden announced that the existing Brent Spence Bridge is being transformed, and a new bridge is being built next to it to span the Ohio River between Cincinnati and Covington. Biden told the crowd this will create hundreds of jobs during the construction process and help keep the economy moving on one of the busiest corridors in the country.

"It's about good jobs," Biden said. "It's about the dignity of work. It's about respect, and, folks, it's about damn time we're doing it."

For decades, people have talked about repairing the Brent Spence Bridge, one of the nation's busiest freight routes. But folks, talking is over. Thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we're finally going to get it done.
— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) January 4, 2023

The historic project has been on the radar of past presidents and governors from both states and both political parties. But it took a $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill to make a new Brent Spence Bridge a reality.

"We can work together," Biden said. "We can get things done. We can move the nation forward."

More than $1 billion of the project's cost will come from the federal government, and $250 million will come from the Kentucky General Assembly.

Sen. Mitch McConnell was one of the handful of Republicans that signed the federal infrastructure bill, which provided more than $1 billion of federal funding for this project.

"This bridge, I think, symbolizes the coming together on both sides of something that both sides thought was important to try and get an outcome," McConnell said.

Democrats and Republicans in Washington, the Democratic White House and Republican-dominated Kentucky General Assembly all had a part in making the project a reality.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said the bipartisan agreement gives drivers and taxpayers a break.

"This is a green light and a game-changer," Beshear said Wednesday. "It impacts our entire country, and this funding is going to allow us to complete this project without tolls."

That lack of tolls is in contrast to the bridges built between Louisville and southern Indiana, a project approved about a decade ago. Tolls are part of the equation for drivers along the Interstate 65 corridor that crosses the Kennedy and Lincoln bridges in Louisville.

"Back then, to move forward, we couldn’t wait two, three, four decades to do what needed to be done," Kentucky State Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, said. "Tolls were a part of that."

Northern Kentucky communities strongly opposed tolls to pay for a new bridge, so construction would not have happened without the federal money.

“Some of experiences that Louisville went through really galvanized the opposition up here based off of the initial projections to where they ended up," said Kentucky State Sen. Chris McDaniel, who represents part of Kenton County. "So, consequently, that’s why you saw so much resistance to a public-private partnership and to tolling as well based on what Louisville’s gone through."

McDaniel said he has not heard any conversation of toll relief in Frankfort, something Louisville-area politicians, including Neal, have hoped for.

"I agree," Neal added. "We shouldn’t be paying tolls down here, I mean where I’m from (Louisville), and not paying them here (northern Kentucky). In fact, we ought to do something that’s more equitable."