From Steve Frank.. A brief letter I recently wrote on my opposition to tolling the Brent Spence Bridge: Dxxx; Thank you for concern about our 3 and one half legged, furry friend. The data you have sent is quite interesting and yes, driving as in vehicle miles traveled is declining for any number of reasons. As it does, the need to build new roads diminishes. What I am suggesting is that gasoline use and therefore tax revenues will deteriorate at a faster rate than vehicles miles traveled as fuel efficiency standards and alternative fueled vehicles become much more prevalent over the next decade. As per tolls, in this case they will be inadequate to the job due to traffic diversion. Whenever toll roads go bankrupt, inevitably the main reason was that there were viable alternative routes. This is exactly the dilemma this road faces. The only method to combat this is for the state to guarantee any shortfall in revenues via “availability payments”. That is they will be on the hook for the difference. That one is a nonstarter with even supporters of tolling. In addition to this problem I will suggest that there are other more tactical issues that prevent me from supporting the Chamber’s position. (Oh and I already have the votes to kill this in the State Senate and maybe as well in the House so it is a bit of an academic issue). I will list a few: 1) Both Ohio and Kentucky lack the technical legal back ground to craft Public Private Partnership agreements and will end up getting taken the same way the public did over the stadium leases. 2) You need a trustworthy partner when doing a bi state agreement. Kentucky does not have one with John Kasich in Ohio. I have already taken the measure of his Special Projects Team and in their own candid off the record comments find them to be dismissive of the competence of their counterparts in Kentucky despite their public face. 3) Tolls can be politically manipulated to benefit other areas outside of the Bridge itself. Despite protests to the contrary Ohio has already enacted laws that allow them to toll one structure and apply those revenues elsewhere. They are already doing this by diverting funds generated in the Northern Parkway in Ohio to build new exits on I-71. Before any funding agreement can be approved, a governance structure has to be enacted to deal with issues such as this. 4) Traffic diversion will put at immanent risk a Historic landmark valued by the entire region, The Suspension bridge. 5) Traffic Diversion onto secondary road due to tolls will increase danger and cause more deaths and injuries than at present. 6) There is no agreement as to where tolls will be collected. It is becoming apparent that in order to capture more revenue that tolls may be implemented as far back as Buttermilk Pike. This puts Covington in the position of having people tolled when they cross from Cincinnati and tolled if they approach from areas West of Fort Mitchell. 7) Whither the bridge is built by tolls or not, Lewis Street entrance to Devou Park, the area’s largest green space and the main entrance to Park Hills and Kenton Hills is going to be lost. There are plans to take out a dozen homes on Montague to widen it into two lanes for this purpose but no funding is provided by the Bridge Project to accomplish this. Traffic Diversion onto the Clay Wade Baily Bridge will take traffic from 25,000 cars a day to over 50,000 by the States own study. Fourth and Fifth Streets are incapable of handling that much traffic and the value for money study did not include an analysis of increased traffic flows on Fourth and Fifth Street in Covington; but our own Police Chief, Spike Jones, using national standards accessible to him must place two of our seven patrol officers on traffic duty to deal with this problem. This removes 30% of our police force from taking their regular routes preventing and responding to crime. No funds are provided to Covington to deal with this problem. 9) We have asked for help widening 4’Th Street by getting assistance to help CSX move their railroad trestle. We have met no success in having this included as part of the funding project. 10) Ancillary road improvements have not nor will they be made in time to help the area deal with traffic diversion during construction. Literally no shovels of dirt should be turned until adequate forms of North / South and east West egress are completed. In my opinion that means finishing Route 9 down the east bank of the Licking, Finishing Martin Luther King / 12’th Street to the Shortway Bridge and replacing the veterans Bridge between Covington and Newport. 11) If the Bridge is to be tolled at the Bridge and the tolling is done at the Bridge itself rather than at Buttermilk Pike; Covington’s Fourth and Fifth Street cannot handle the volume of traffic (again not addressed in the value for money study) of cars not taking the Brent Spence Bridge to Ft Washington way to I - 471 on their way to Newport. Such traffic will completely diminish Covington’s effort to keep our riverfront redevelopment connected to the restoration of our Business District by means of easy foot traffic. Our aim in our redevelopment plan is to improve walkability, not to turn Fourth and Fifth Streets into our version of Columbia Parkway and Eastern Avenue in Cincinnati. 12) The Ohio side of the River is getting too much spaghetti junction without adequately contributing to the costs. If there are to be tolls, they must be collected on the new Western Hills Viaduct, I -74 junctions with I-75 and at Mitchell Avenue. 13) Covington, the Commonwealth’s Fifth largest City will be bankrupted…finished….kaput. In addition to Covington centric issues I will list the following problems: 1) In any location where the bridge is tolled, massive traffic diversion will flood Park Hills on Dixie Highway and on Amsterdam Road as people try to beat the toll. Park Hills estimates that they will be required to spend extra tens of thousands a year on road maintenance on Amsterdam Road. 2) Park Hills will lose a whole neighborhood perched on Scenic Drive and Cedar Ridge Lane. I believe condemnation letters to the owners of these homes may have recently gone out prior to any final approval from the legislature in Frankfort. 3) Ft. Wright and Ft Mitchell will see their secondary roads experience wear and tear as people avoid tolls by either shunting down Highland Avenue or down to Route 8. 4) Ludlow, Bromley and West Covington will also choke on additional traffic along Route 8 from traffic diversion. 5) Latonia, Taylor Mill, South Covington, Edgewood and Independence will also find their access to I-275 severely impacted as areas to the North and West take I 275 to I 471 to avoid tolls. This again follows from the more than doubling of traffic that the state’s own study projects to occur on I-471 Bridge but then it’s Value for Money Study failed to consider where those extra cars that cross I-471 would be going next. 6) Campbell County and Eastern Cincinnati will have to develop a new love for their neighbors driving around I 275 to I 471 from Western Kenton and Boone Counties in the morning as that traffic is expected by the State’s own study to double because of toll avoidance. This brings up a third consequence of either the extra costs of tolling or of traffic diversion; the impact on the economic viability of Northern Kentucky itself. If people will be facing $2,000 in toll costs just to go to work or face extra danger and delays in traffic diversion; why not just move to Ohio? Additional thoughts on expanding the Bridge route: We really do not have a traffic problem today. Yes there are delays at rush hour, but what city in the country does not have those and what we have barely passes as congestion as compared to New York, Boston, LA., Chicago, Atlanta or even regional neighbors such as Indianapolis, Columbus or Pittsburgh. What problems we have could be precluded by tolling tractor trailers at rush hour such that they alone would divert. Yes I know some trucking companies are the very ones push for tolling the Brent Spence Bridge and they have the time is money mantra going for them. To which I say, tough luck. You are not putting Covington and potentially all of Northern Kentucky behind the 8 ball just so you can drive unimpeded through here at rush hour. The trucking and manufacturing industries function well enough in areas that are far more clogged with congestion. There is another potential route that needs to be thought through where I-71 is extended past where it meets I -75 South of Richwood that would potentially open up Southern Boone, Kenton, and Campbell Counties for development so that we could have our own new version of Warren and Butler Counties. Widening the existing road opens no new land for economic development. No wonder Ohio likes this deal, 65% of the tolls are paid in Northern Kentucky, and they get most of the increased economic viability for their new areas of growth and make travel for their suburbs easier to downtown while Northern Kentucky permanently hamstrings itself. Lastly; we will have tied ourselves to 40 or 50 years of tolls (though once started they will probably never go away and will only increase); just as in the next decade a whole new method of funding highway construction will have to be found as fuel economy standards and alternative fueled methods of propulsion such as natural gas, advanced hybrids, and even fuel cell vehicles reduce traditional uses of gasoline and diesel and the taxes on those substances. In essence we will be tying ourselves to 40 plus years of tolls to pay for our bridge just as the paradigm shifts and a way is found for us to have to pay for everybody else free bridge. Steve Frank CFP Mayor, pro Tempore Covington Kentucky Board of Advisors, NKY Chamber of Commerce Infrastructure and Transportation Committee
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 19:19:58 +0000
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