John Minchillo/AP Photo
A cyclist crosses the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, connecting Cincinnati, Ohio, and Covington, Kentucky, as a dense fog rolls over the Ohio River, October 13, 2017.
There is only one bridge in the American South that, due to its decrepitude, needs to be inspected once every month, when the federal guideline is to inspect bridges once every two years. In rural Harlan County, Kentucky, the Ashley Lane bridge crosses Cutshin Creek, and has been assessed for $69,000 worth of repairs. Far from the attention of national politics and major trade routes, inspections on Kentucky’s bridges reveal a state of neglect for infrastructure that mostly impacts rural areas, but that has not gone unnoticed by local organizations.
Kentucky, of course, is home to Mitch McConnell, the Senate minority leader, who recently stated that “100 percent of our focus is on stopping this new administration.” That presumably includes the Biden administration’s infrastructure proposal, its top legislative priority, which promises to repair “the worst 10,000 smaller bridges” in America. Many of these are in Kentucky.
McConnell has let other Senate Republicans take the lead on negotiating with the White House over infrastructure, and they have offered a far smaller package than Biden’s ambitions. But McConnell’s resistance to increasing taxes on the wealthy and corporations to offset the spending suggests that he mainly wants to drag out talks until they fail. That would mean no infrastructure improvements for the country, including where they are most desperately needed: Kentucky.
Compared to other Southern states (as defined by the federal government, which includes states from Delaware to Florida and as far west as Oklahoma), 36 of the top 50 bridges that need to be inspected most often are in Kentucky, requiring inspections once every six months or less, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration. Kentucky has the only bridge in the South listed to be inspected every month, Ashley Lane over Cutshin Creek, as well as the only bridge listed to be inspected every two months, near Route KY-2425 over Little Creek. Both are in Harlan County, in Eastern Kentucky. Many more bridges in Kentucky and other Southern states are listed to be inspected every six months.
The frequency of inspection is directly connected to quality of the bridge. In fact, of bridges in the South that have been assessed in the National Bridge Inventory with an estimated dollar amount for improvements and repairs, 16 of the top 20 bridges are in Kentucky. They are mostly small bridges in rural communities.
All of the bridges assessed for repair and requiring more frequent inspections were rated “poor.” Some had parts of the bridge structure rated “serious” and “critical.” None were currently listed as “imminent failure.” Usually the worst rating goes to the substructure, the part of the bridge least visible to the driver. “A lot of the wear and tear that a bridge may take is actually not on top,” says spokesperson Doug Hecox of the Federal Highway Administration. But he quickly adds, “If there’s reasons to worry, we’ll close the bridge … The public’s safety is always the very first order of business.”
Hecox said he could not explain why so many bridges in Kentucky were being inspected more often than the federal standard of every 24 months. It’s up to the states to decide how often their bridges get inspected and to employ engineers to conduct the inspections. The federal government trains inspectors, state employees and private contractors, but the work is then carried out by state governments.
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Hecox did claim that the quality or safety of the bridge had nothing to do with an increased inspection frequency, in a phone interview with the Prospect. However, a “proposed rule” document written by the Federal Highway Administration in November 2019 put it this way: “When risk grows, bridges should be inspected more often, and when risk is reduced, bridges may be inspected less often.”
There are many bridges older than the ones in Kentucky that are inspected at the federal minimum level. (The South’s oldest bridge in Maryland was built in 1809 and is inspected every 24 months.) Furthermore, there are other Southern bridges with higher estimated repair costs that have better inspection ratings and can be inspected less frequently. The problem in Kentucky is more pronounced, and not limited to smaller, rural bridges.
In 2019, pieces of the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge, also known as the Cincinnati-Covington Bridge, connecting Kentucky and Ohio, fell into the Ohio River. One direction of traffic had to be closed for several days for maintenance. This January, the state announced a nine-month closure to make a series of restorations to the bridge. The Roebling Bridge carries more than 8,000 cars per day, in addition to foot traffic. Constant work closures on the Brent Spence Bridge, also between Kentucky and Ohio, can reduce the bridge’s traffic down to one lane.
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (the state’s department of transportation) did not reply to the Prospect’s emailed questions and was not available for an interview before publication.
Compared to other Southern states, 36 of the top 50 bridges that need to be inspected most often are in Kentucky.
The business community in Kentucky penned a letter to the state legislature this February calling for more investment in the state’s infrastructure. For the fourth year in a row, a bill has been introduced in the state legislature to increase a tax on gasoline to spend on roadways. The champion for this tax, maybe surprisingly, is the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.
“We are able to punch above our weight when it comes to exports,” says Kate Shanks, vice president of public affairs of the Kentucky Chamber. “So having a strong transportation system is really critical to get the goods to people.”
Shanks adds that Kentucky’s surrounding states—competitors, as she sees them—have all increased infrastructure spending over the last few years. “We’re just going to continue to fall behind with crumbling infrastructure and it’s really unfortunate,” Shanks says. She sees this lack of investment as a reason why a company might choose to expand in a neighboring state instead of in Kentucky.
The bill that the Chamber is supporting, along with more than 20 other local and statewide organizations and businesses, would allocate part of the tax revenue to Kentucky’s counties, which would be able to decide on which parts of their roadways they need to invest in, Shanks explains.
In addition to the state freeing up resources, a federal infusion of funds could be welcome. The fact sheet of the American Jobs Plan, which Biden proposed on March 31, states that part of a $115 billion surface transportation provision would “fix the ten most economically significant bridges in the country in need of reconstruction,” as well as “repair the worst 10,000 smaller bridges, including bridges that provide critical connections to rural and tribal communities.” With Kentucky’s particular needs, it could be in line for a substantial share of that funding, though the Kentucky Chamber is more focused on state legislation than what’s happening in Washington.
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“Regardless of what the federal government does, we [in Kentucky] have to have resources,” Shanks says. “We have to have skin in the game.”
Jason Bailey, founder and executive director of KyPolicy, an independent, nonpartisan economic-policy think tank, agrees that the state needs to step up. “We’re not generating enough money at the state level to pay for updating our roads and bridges,” he says. “And that combined with federal inadequacy of funding and the federal gas tax not going up since the 1990s results in a situation where our roads and bridges are very out of date.”
Bailey adds that politicians in Kentucky are afraid of taxes, even when they may be needed for improvements and investment. “Influence from Koch Industries and other anti-tax groups has stopped the state from investing in infrastructure, but also public health and the unemployment system, which both became more apparent in the pandemic,” Bailey says. “There’s been this climate created for decades that I think has broken the link in people’s minds between taxes and things that they pay for that we all need to rely on.”
