DOT grants $452 million loan for Ohio River project

   U.S. Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx has granted a Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) loan for $452 million to finance the Downtown Crossing section of the Louisville and Southern Indiana Ohio River Bridges Project.
   “The Ohio River Bridges project will help residents and businesses get where they need to go faster and safer,” Secretary Foxx said in a statement. “It’s a great example of two states working together to strengthen their shared economic interests and one the Department of Transportation was happy to invest in.”
   Of the two bridges involved in the Downtown Crossing project, one bridge will be built to carry six lanes of northbound Interstate 65 traffic between Louisville and Jeffersonville, Indiana. The John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge, which today carries all I-65 traffic, will be rehabilitated and reconfigured to carry only I-65 southbound traffic on six lanes. 
   The cost of the Downtown Crossing, which Kentucky is funding, is roughly $1.3 billion, and it represents one half of the bi-state Ohio River Bridges project, which also includes the new East End Bridge, also spanning the Ohio River eight miles to the north. Indiana will finance the East End Crossing Project connecting Prospect, Ky., and Utica, Ind., which is also estimated to cost $1.3 billion.