From Investors.com:
The 48-year-old Brent Spence Bridge spanning the Ohio River near Cincinnati isn’t much to look at. But for President Obama, it’s become a rallying cry for his $477 billion jobs plan.
He referred to it in his Sept. 8 speech to Congress, saying “there’s a bridge that needs repair between Ohio and Kentucky that’s on one of the busiest trucking routes in North America.” …
…Although some press accounts have described Brent Spence as “crumbling,” and the White House says it’s an example of “urgently needed” repairs, the bridge isn’t falling apart. In fact, it’s designed to last for decades more…
The bridge does have a problem – its too small for the amount of traffic crossing it. So, the plan is to build an additional bridge next to it…but that isn’t scheduled to start for three for four years, putting it outside the Obama timetable of two years for the projects in his jobs bill. In other words, the bridge doesn’t in any way relate to the things Obama wants to do…only a bonehead would go there as an example of “crumbling infrastructure” that you want to repair right away. This is right up there with using a company that is outsourcing jobs as a backdrop for your bill to create more jobs.
Its like the Obama people just don’t care – they just want their photo ops and sound bites and are expecting that the MSM, as it did in 2008, will keep a lid on any criticism. Trouble is, the New Media has grown exponentially since then and Obama no longer has the ability to be a “stealth candidate”. We know all about him – and we’re tired of him.
2012 can’t get here fast enough…and I’m really looking forward to it.
Blogs For Victory 
Concrete fell from the upper deck to the lower deck, stopping traffic for hours, in June of this year. The Sherman Minton Bridge in Louisville got shutdown this year because of cracks found in the steel. The bridge shares the same design as the Brent Spence Bridge.
Somebody is getting dumber by the day here, but evidence indicates it is somebody other than Obama.
Cory,
Yeah, because if one bridge has a problem, all other bridges do, too…and as long as you ignore the fact that this particular bridge has no problem, you’re theory is just great.
We’re not just talking about some other bridge having a problem. The Brent Spence Bridge had traffic stopped on it for hours as concrete came crumbling (see how I used the term and it is true in the most literal sense?) down from the upper deck to block the lower deck in June. Even if the bridge is in currently working order, bridges of that age have generally increasing risk of failure, and long term failure of that particular bridge would be catastrophic for traffic flow in the area.
Yes, they are talking about constructing an additional bridge to ease traffic flow, but part of the plan is to cease using the current bridge for highway traffic or tear it down completely. This isn’t a bridge that the engineers involved think should be left alone for decades. They aren’t building an “additional” bridge as such.
And we’re also not talking about a bridge that is a little over capacity. It’s right around 100% over capacity. If they could afford to do it sooner, I think it likely that they’d start construction sooner, as the bridge is one of the worst as far as congestion and traffic accidents in the country.
So what part of this sounds like this bridge is not a piece of infrastructure that needs attention? Would you have kept your mouth shut if Obama had said that the bridge needed to be repaired or replaced? Do you even bother doing a 5 minute Google search before regurgitating other people’s talking points mindlessly?
I stand by my initial assertion. Your post has definitely done its part to underscore the /somebody’s/ stupidity, at least.
If President Bush had done this you would have been merciless in your attacks. No doubt about it.
Cory, the 1st “stimulus” was for infrastructure repair. 2 years ago Obama was in Ohio touting his $1trillion shovel ready bill to build and repair bridges in Ohio. But the money went to unions for payoffs, NO jobs. To Solyndria. Solar panels!! Stopped oil and gas and coal projects. Your talking points are nonsense. Are you still that dumb?
It was definitely political theater, but it was great political theater. A bridge between KY and OH, which are represented by the two most powerful GOP members in congress. Pushing for jobs while the GOP is killing them. Priceless.
Bozo notwithstanding, from Andrew Stiles at NRO [emphasis mine];
“In an effort to highlight the need for the American Jobs Act, which would provide billions in new infrastructure funding, the president will deliver a speech within sight of a “functionally obsolete” bridge on the Ohio River.
{…}
The bridge in question is the Brent Spence Bridge, a 48-year-old structure spanning the Ohio River. It lies on a critical commercial route, carrying an average of 172,000 vehicles each day, more than double the number it was designed to carry.
{…}
In his address to Congress earlier this month, President Obama singled out the bridge as example of one that “needs repair.” White House press secretary Jay Carney echoed this line last week. “It’s pretty clear that this bridge could benefit from a little repair and renovation,” he told reporters. But local authorities are already on the case. They have been working for nearly a decade on a plan to replace the bridge with an entirely new structure, part of a broader initiative to alleviate vehicle congestion in the area.
Pfeiffer told the Enquirer that passing the president’s jobs bill would put unemployed construction workers to work right away on infrastructure projects across Ohio and Kentucky. The term “shovel-ready” comes to mind. However, there is nothing “shovel-ready” about the Brent Spence Bridge. Analysis on the project began only recently, and the Federal Highway Administration has yet to open the issue to public comment. Even if all the necessary funding were in place (which it’s not), the FHWA estimates, the earliest possible start date for construction on the project would be 2015, with a completion date in 2022.
{…}
Part of the reason is that various noise and environmental studies are still being conducted to ensure that the project is in compliance with state and federal regulations.
{…}
The first stimulus plan included $51.9 billion for “transportation” and “infrastructure” programs. Of that tidy sum, the Brent Spence Bridge received exactly $0, despite having already been declared “functionally obsolete.” Given the president’s professed concern for the bridge’s health, surely this omission was an egregious oversight.”
Time to put politics aside and work for the country which this President is not doing.
catspuke
your stupidity is legion dennis.
the repairs have been HELD up for YEARS by insane ENVIRONMENTALISTS.
What’s the point here? Apparently this IBD writer hasn’t heard of Shermageddon. He states Brent’s not “shovel ready” so didn’t receive stimulus cash. Should a non-shovel-ready project have gotten stimulus cash? It also says if the cash were available, they COULD start by next summer, so stimulus COULD get jobs going within the two year window, exactly the whole point of Obama’s plan.
Bozo,
Do you even know what a shovel ready project is? Hint – a bridge can not be shovel ready.
In 2009, we gave Obama $800 billion to repair the nations infrastructure and put people to work. He blew it, and is now promising to make it right this time. Too late. You piss away the first $800 billion and then act like a contemptuous child asking for more, all the while playing class warfare, and you get nothing. Obama is classless, clueless and completely unfit to be POTUS.
Didn’t he make this speech at the site of America’s first Intercontinental Railroad”?
That’s Ambitious! Must be used to connect to the 57 States on the other Continents.
count
ROTFL
amnesia??
racism?
YuuuuP
Obama 5 Exectutive Orders, White males need not apply
From the LA Times (for Bozo) [emphasis mine];
So here’s how the ex-state senator from the Chicago machine reacts: At an operating cost of $181,000 per hour, he flies Air Force One nearly four hours roundtrip for 17 minutes of remarks touting infrastructure repairs by a bridge that doesn’t need them.
The real reason he’s at the Brent Spence Bridge is because it links the home states of both congressional Republican leaders, John Boehner and Mitch McConnell. So Obama can cutely blame Republicans for holding up his jobs bill, even though it’s Nevada Democrat Harry Reid.