Price-Tag for New Brent Spence Bridge and Highway Widening Balloons to $4.4 Billion

Officials with the Ohio Department of Transportation and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet announced today that they now expect the looming bridge construction and highway expansion along I-75's Brent Spence corridor to cost a whopping $4.4 billion.

And that number could keep climbing.

$800 million+ spike

Read that again: Four. Point. Four. BILLION. Dollars.

And, per reporting by both the Cincinnati Enquirer and the Cincinnati Business Courier, those costs could continue growing.

The new figure is up from estimates generated as recently as 2022, quoting the project at (an only slightly less mind-boggling) $3.6 billion. We're looking at nearly a billion-dollar increase.

"We've seen some big time inflationary increases across the country when it comes to construction," ODOT spokesperson Matt Bruning told WVXU.

According to the Enquirer, the new estimate "does not include two other significant parts of the project: renovating the existing bridge to reduce lanes on each of its two decks from four to three, and [upgrades for] six miles of approaching interstate.

"Those costs are not yet known," the Enquirer reports, also citing ODOT's spokesman.

Quietly announcing increasing costs

While shocking, the cost increase was predictable, and not just because of recent inflation. Projects like this always seem to end up costing more than we originally imagine, don't they?

It's no accident that the agencies tucked the new price-tag into a news release sounding the trumpets for the project's "long-awaited" groundbreaking, following a critical late-stage approval by the Ohio Controlling Board (part of the state's Office of Budget and Management). Earlier the same day, that board approved a budget increase for Ohio's portion of the bridge and highway approach costs, now at nearly $2.9 billion and boosting the project to its new, dizzying total.

This approval, the agencies claim, grants them "authority to finalize construction plans and put shovels in the ground this spring."

Groundbreaking what?

It's unclear what this "groundbreaking" will actually signify (if/when/where it takes place are still TBD), as there remains plenty of uncertainty around the decades-in-the-making project. For one, CTSD and peer organizations' environmental impact complaint, filed in federal court in October 2024, is still pending as of this post.

The lawsuit contests the Federal Highway Administration's May 2024 "finding of no significant (environmental) impact" (FONSI) as a sufficient reason to exempt ODOT and KYTC from providing full environmental impact statements (EIS) for the project. The suit argues, rather, that any infrastructure overhaul of this scale and impact warrants a full EIS and demands that the states' provide such before any construction begins in earnest.

Notably, the agencies' announcement was vague about what "put shovels in the ground" actually means, but they said to expect a groundbreaking "later this spring."

Also notable, the agencies explicitly mentioned "finalizing construction plans," which confirms CTSD's resolve that it's not too late to course-correct and make the new and improved Brent Spence corridor an improvement for everyone, not just car-commuters and through-freight truck drivers.