Transcript of testimony by Congressman Steve Driehaus (D-OH) before the House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Highways and Transit about the upcoming surface transportation reauthorization (also known as the Highway bill) on April 28, 2009.
Thank you Mr. Chairman, and thank you Representative Duncan, Ranking Member Duncan, and the Chairman of the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Chairman Oberstar for allowing us to testify before you today. I also want to thank Congresswoman Schmidt, who is a big supporter of this project as well, in eastern Cincinnati.
This project—and I’m not going to go over the numbers that Congressman Davis just went over—but when we talk about projects of regional and national significance, I don’t know that we have a better example of that than the Brent Spence Bridge. And I would refer to you the map behind me, which shows, as Congressman Davis suggested, I-75 connecting northern Michigan and Canada all the way to southern Florida. But at the Brent Spence Bridge, at the Ohio River, you have I-75 coming together with I-71 and I-74 all at the same time. Three major interstate highways crossing one of the largest rivers in the country on one of the busiest bridges that we have in the country. And as Congressman Davis has already outlined, the cost of replacing this span would exceed the total appropriation for both Ohio and Kentucky in highway funds on an annual basis.
Now we’ve already put in the federal government almost $59 million in the SAFETEA-LU bill into projects associated with the Brent Spence Bridge, and we have made tremendous project due to the leadership of Congressman Davis and others, our senators on both sides of the river, on both sides of the aisle. And we are now to the point where the folks in Cincinnati, the folks in northern Kentucky are ready to come together on a single proposal to erect a parallel bridge that would separate the traffic of I-75 and I-71 to accommodate the tremendous amount of commerce that is currently going across the Ohio River.
When you look at the Federal Register, Mr. Chairman, and I would refer to you the Federal Register of October 24th of 2008, where the Department of Transportation through its rules defines projects of regional and national significance. It states that a multi-state project meeting the definition of an eligible project under 505.5 of this section shall have eligible project costs that are quantified in the project proposal as equal to or exceeding the lesser of $500,000,000 or 75 percent of the amount of the federal highway assistance funds apportioned for the most recently completed fiscal year to the state in which the project is located that has the largest apportionment. In this case that would be Kentucky, and as congressman Davis has already indicated, this exceeds not only Kentucky, but also Ohio. The total cost of the project is somewhere between two and a half and three billion dollars.
So when we talk about reasons for this committee coming together, this Congress coming together, to recognize that there are significant spans that need to be funded but fall outside of the typical parameters of this committee, I believe that this project should be the example used in our country as this committee coming together to recognize the dependence of this type of span for the international commerce that takes place throughout the United States.
So I yield back the rest of my time, Mr. Chairman, but with that I also want to thank Mr. Kolb and his staff for the tremendous work that’s been done on this already. So with that, I yield back my time, Mr. Chairman.
