An increased budget for the Kentucky Department of Transportation will allow for more projects to move forward in the coming year. The bipartisan infrastructure law recently passed by congress will allow for a 30 percent annual increase in the funding given to Kentucky by the Federal Highway Administration. Jim Gray is the Kentucky Transportation Secretary. He said it is important both sides of the aisle come together.
"So that says there is bipartisan support, which is a good thing for transportation. You know, I've been saying a lot lately that our roads are not red or blue, they are just Kentucky roads. So, that's what this budget really represents is Kentucky roads, all across our state."
One of the projects on the agenda is the building of a companion bridge for the Brent Spence Bridge connecting Covington to Cincinnati.
"We're very hopeful for the Brent Spence bridge, that we'll be able to win a federal grant that comes through the infrastructure legislation because the Brent Spence bridge is really the poster child for that legislation. It's an aging structure itself, but it represents a bottleneck,” Gray said.
The ultimate plan is to build a companion bridge for the route to mitigate traffic that crowds the bridge. Gray says that while the bridge is not unsafe, traffic crossing it every day is very heavy, and consists largely of heavy freight. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is a financial supporter of WEKU.
