A new federal lawsuit could delay or halt the construction of the $3.6 billion companion bridge to the Brent Spence Bridge, which spans the Ohio River between Ohio and Kentucky. Work on the bridge is scheduled to begin early next year.
The plaintiffs claim that transportation leaders didn't fully study the possible environmental impacts of the project and increased traffic over the new bridge.
The 34-page lawsuit names six defendants, including U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and top transportation officials from Ohio and Kentucky. The suit said the agencies overseeing the project failed to complete a required environmental impact study, instead relying on a 2012 assessment that was updated recently and that reported no significant impacts.
"We're going against some big forces here,” said Mackenzie Mason, a member of the Coalition for Transit and Sustainable Development, one of the organizations involved in the lawsuit, in a statement to Local 12 News. “Our main priority is to think about like these future generations that are going to be dealing with whatever Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) builds for the next fifty to one hundred years.”
Federal leaders approved the project in 2022 as part of the $1.2 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, with President Biden visiting soon after to celebrate the funding. However, the lawsuit argued that the project doesn't include sufficient non-motor vehicle alternatives, such as walking, cycling, or mass transit.
The project called for the construction of a new bridge directly to the west of Brent Spence, which would then handle local traffic with interstate traffic from Interstate 71/75 routed to the new structure.
This lawsuit is the latest in a series of cases nationwide raising environmental concerns and potential climate change impacts from increasing vehicle traffic. Similar cases in states like Wisconsin and Oregon have also highlighted the disproportionate impact on low-income or minority neighborhoods.
Source: Local12.com, Fox19.com
