Posted on 09/18/2011 10:06:17 PM PDT by thurat
A cadre of state, local and federal officials — both Republicans and Democrats represented — got an up-close look at the Sherman Minton Bridge Saturday, agreeing on at least one thing: There’s still no telling how long it’s going to be closed.
Indiana Rep. Todd Young was joined by Kentucky Rep. John Yarmuth, Sen. Mitch McConnell and Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer for the tour.
The bridge, which connects New Albany to Louisville over the Ohio River, has been shut down for more than a week after inspectors discovered a critical crack in a tension tie that previously could not be seen through visual inspection.
When there’s an emergency, the federal government can play a more definitive role, McConnell told reporters at a press conference that followed the tour. He said the timing was good because by the time further debate about the funding comes up, leaders will have a better idea of what the project requires.
“Roads and bridges are not a partisan issue,” he said.
Right now, engineers are still diagnosing what the problems are and figuring out how they can be fixed, the officials said. It’ll probably be another two weeks before that’s known. They declined to speculate on what they saw on the tour.
“It’s a complicated process,” said Yarmuth. “They got a hundred people working on this, doing very sophisticated testing.”
“There’s no question the responsible thing was to close the bridge until we can actually determine what eventually needs to be done to repair the bridge,” Fisher said. The Louisville mayor said he recognizes that the traffic headaches spawned by the closure have been a tremendous inconvenience, but said it may have saved the area from a disaster. He said traffic plans were being continually adjusted in an effort to ease the commute.
(Excerpt) Read more at newsandtribune.com ...
Why didn’t they agree to ask Obama what happened to the Stimulus 1 plan $900 Billion Dollars he was given to fix brdges, roads and other infrastructure?
Time to replace it with the Hyman Roth Bridge.
The architect of essentially doing away with years of work on the Ohio River Bridges project. It is little known that John Yarmuth was a Board member of River Fields, an organization dedicated to killing the bridges by filing lawsuits, requesting one "environmental impact study" after another, using Indian land preservation laws (even though there is no evidence there are any Indian lands available), and whatever other stalling tactics can be used. The current bridge system has been inadequate and now disastrous since one of the aging bridges has now been shut down completing, and the other is now overloaded. This will affect commerce nationwide with the major highway systems of I-64 and I-65 grinding to a hault due to this nonsense that has been going on for decades. One of River Fields greatest antagonists was Anne Northup - but with her defeat they literally got one of their own in power who will certainly do nothing to correct this situation. This conduct has caused the waste of untold millions of tax dollars over the years and continues to increase the cost of the project - which may very well be the goal - to waste so much money and increase the expense of the project that it would be made impossible to complete. One of the things they have fought for is an underground tunnel rather than a normal road to avoid disturbing what they call a "historic garden."
Ohio River Bridges Project: Obstruction
Instead the money went to things like Solyndra, studying monkeys on crack, ants in Africa, etc.
Call Solyndra...they've got 500 million dollars to spare...right? Oh wait. Never mind.
Wasting money like that on things like Solyndra means that money isn’t available when an actual emergency arises. This wasteful spending is also a national security issue and our candidates should begin to frame it in such a manner.
ping to this new thread - saw you were interested in the subject on the previous thread.
Then the French showed up and shot them to pieces with muskets ~ primarily so they could set up a couple of mill races to power saws to do roughcuts for furniture to be finished in France by Boule (now sold as Louis XIV antiques for vast sums of money).
Given the way the Ohio used to flood back in the good old days in the New Cut Area I really doubt there are many Archaic archaeological sites in the immediate area ~ unless they're on top of the "The Knobs" ~ which is where they found the largest Indian arrow making operation in the Western Hemisphere (now owned by Farrah and lent out to the state).
Anything down in the valley is of relatively recent origin ~ like 1930 (to be cynical about it).
So this puke Congresscritter from Kentucky is the guy who held up building sufficient modern bridges?
That bad boy has blood on his hands.
Good thing both states are involved. As a former Indiana resident, I can rest easily knowing that Indiana officials will “study” the matter “closely”. Thats code for we’ll wring our hands at meetings for 20 years and do nothing except bitch about the traffic.
...for those interested. :D
great info. on OBlahBlah's newest Re-Election Photo-op.....
(the malignant narcissistic marxist ideologue with a messianic complex man-child)
The only major Indian sites nearby that I know of are the burial mounds located at the northern end of Fort Knox, near the base of Muldraugh Hill and just north of US-31W.
Naw, the Indiana interests WANT several more bridges across the Ohio ~ and now there’s a chance they’ll get built.
We have wanted a new bridge for the past 30 years. When the Gene Snyder Freeway(which I still call the Jefferson Freeway) was built it was designed to meet with 265 on the Indiana side. You can see from any map where they were to be built. Politicians have lined their pockets and their cronys for as long as I can remember. I’m lucky and haven’t had to try to get across. I think I would drive to Brandenburg to cross if I had to head west.
Thanks for the ping.
This group has been involved in the background apparently for a lot of years...now they are being exposed to the light of day. I really had no idea about them myself or the fact that Congressman Yarmuth was on their Board until recently. Those links in the above post are very informative to provide a history of what all has been going on for so many years. Rebecca Jackson and her organization deserve a lot of credit for bringing this issue to light and local talk show host Mandy Connell for bringing attention to it, even before this latest crisis with the bridge.
I remember noticing that on a map as a little kid that there was I-265 on both sides of the river but no bridge. I thought it was weird they would have the same road number but it not be connected...I would later learn years later why that was the case. It’s totally absurd. Only recently did I start to learn about the organization River Fields and their involvement over the years to use lawsuits and regulations to block it over and over again and make it more and more expensive. In a post above I have several links with information on this situation and the long history of this bridges project. Rebecca Jackson laid out an ultimatum to the President to show up and set a shovel in the ground today at the site to get the bridge built. I’ve always liked that lady.
I agree, I really like Rebecca Jackson. I would much rather vote for her for governor than David Williams. He also belongs to the “good old boy” network here in KY.
Many thanks for the ping.
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