FHWA Chief Doubles Down on Wider Highways during Brent Spence Visit

Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) Administrator Sean McMaster was in Cincinnati this week for a transportation conference at First Financial Center, formerly the Duke Energy Center. He told officials and business leaders that he could not visit Cincinnati without seeing the Brent Spence Bridge project, and that his agency was closely watching its progress.

While he was here, McMaster praised highway widening as a way to solve traffic congestion. But decades of research and experience show that adding lanes can actually lead to more driving and more traffic.

In 2024, McMaster’s agency decided that the known health and environmental risks of the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project were not serious enough to require a full review of those risks or ways to reduce them.

We already know the risks

The agencies running the project have identified dozens of possible impacts. They include damage or disruption to:

• 90 acres of urban forest

• Six wetlands

• More than a dozen streams

• Air, water, and soil quality from more traffic caused by doubling the highway’s capacity

• Stormwater systems, since the project will use more than 50 acres of land

The neighborhoods around the highway already have higher-than-average rates of asthma and ozone pollution.

In 2024, FHWA allowed the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) and Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) to move forward without completing a full Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS. Federal law requires this kind of review for major projects that could cause significant harm to people or the environment.

An EIS does more than identify possible damage. It also requires transportation agencies to look for ways to avoid or reduce that damage.

ODOT and KYTC, with FHWA's approval, skipped that step. They said the project's expected impacts were not serious enough to require more study.

CTSD and other partner groups challenged that decision in federal court in October 2024. The case is still pending. We remain concerned that the states have moved ahead with a ribbon-cutting, groundbreaking, and construction while the court has yet to decide whether a full environmental review was required.

Doubling down on car-dependence

McMaster gave some insight into why his agency wants to move the project forward so quickly.

“Any delay in project delivery has an impact on cost – and so we want projects to move,” he told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

But McMaster's idea of "cost" is too narrow. The cost of a highway project is not just the price of construction. It can also include damage to public health, the environment, and neighborhoods.

McMaster and state officials have focused heavily on the project's economic benefits for commuters and the freight industry. They have paid far less attention to the risks for people who live and work near the highway.

McMaster also pointed to the huge amount of freight that crosses the Brent Spence and said the new bridge would reduce congestion and improve safety for local drivers and the national economy.

"It’s just really critical that this new companion bridge provide the relief, the congestion relief, and the safety enhancements for not only local commuters, which is going to be transformative for us, but also for our national economy,” he said.

That focus fits with the Trump administration's larger "Freedom to Drive" initiative, which aims to address traffic congestion by expanding the nation's roads and highways.

But there is a problem with that approach: More lanes do not necessarily mean less traffic. In fact, it can mean even more.

When highways get wider, more people often choose to drive. Over time, the new lanes can fill up with traffic, bringing congestion back.

We're still hopeful for actual solutions

The Brent Spence project is moving forward, but there is still time to make some choices differently.

ODOT and KYTC have chosen a progressive design-build process. That means some parts of the project can still be changed as the design develops. Those changes could include better transit service and safer, more welcoming connections for people walking and biking under the new highway.

A 2015 memo from then-ODOT project manager Stefan Spinosa pointed to a different solution. He wrote that adding more lanes to I-75 would attract more traffic because of the way Cincinnati's road system works.

He concluded: “Realistically, future traffic demand can only be addressed with a mass transit component.”

At CTSD, we will continue pushing local elected officials and journalists to question the parts of this project that are often left out of the story.

We are also working with local advocates and architects to imagine a Better Brent Spence—one that better serves the people who live, work, and travel through our region.

It's not too late to build something better together.