I-64 Bridge Linking Indiana, Kentucky to Close for Six Months of Repairs

This story appears in the Oct. 10 print edition of Transport Topics. Click here to subscribe today.

The Interstate 64 bridge spanning the Ohio River between Louisville, Ky., and southern Indiana must be closed for six months, transportation officials said.

It will take that long to carry out the repairs to the span — the Sherman Minton Bridge — which was closed Sept. 9 after a routine inspection turned up a crack in a steel load-carrying joint.

“The problem point was in a weld at a joint,” said Chuck Wolfe, director of communications for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. As a result, workers will be welding on new steel plates at all the joints where bridge girders meet, he said.

The closing of the I-64 bridge has meant traffic in and out of Louisville and across the river must take detours, with the major detour route being the Interstate 65 bridge that also crosses the river at Louisville.

“The trucking industry has adjusted to this,” said Wolfe, “but it certainly is an inconvenience.”

Before its closing, the I-64 bridge carried 70,000 to 80,000 vehicles a day, Wolfe said. He did not have truck traffic figures.

By comparison, the Interstate 65 bridge, which must now handle a large number of those detoured vehicles, usually carries about 180,000 vehicles a day but now is swollen with detoured traffic.

Truckers are more anxious than ever to avoid traveling in peak traffic times with the added detour traffic, trucking officials in both states have said.

The announcement that the bridge would require lengthy and major repairs was made Sept. 30 on the Indiana side of the river at the New Albany, Ind., fire station.

Kentucky Gov. Steven Beshear (D) and Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) were joined by U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) for the announcement.

Daniels said the repairs would last 20 years, and Beshear said the states would find the money to pay for the unexpected work, the Associated Press reported.

Transportation officials have estimated the cost of repairs to be $20 million.

The bid for the construction work is expected to be advertised for two weeks, said Will Wingfield, director of communications for the Indiana Department of Transportation.

Although the bridge was built jointly by the two states, Indiana is responsible for its maintenance.

In an effort to see that the repair work is done as soon as possible, the construction contract being readied for bidding will contain incentives for speedy completion, Wolfe said.

The contractor awarded the project stands to earn as much as $100,000 a day, up to $5 million in all, for each day the firm finishes the work ahead of schedule, Wolfe said.

The closed Louisville bridge is one of two in the region that recently have drawn national attention after President Obama focused on them. He mentioned the closed Louisville bridge during his Sept. 22 visit to Cincinnati.

The president was in Cincinnati to promote his proposed $447 billion jobs plan, which includes $27 billion for highways and bridges.

At that event, the president stood at the foot of the traffic-clogged Brent Spence Bridge, which carries Interstate 71 and Interstate 75 traffic over the river between Cincinnati and Covington, Ky.

Both the Cincinnati bridge and the closed Louisville bridge are major freight arteries, but both are also aging, with the closed Louisville bridge at 49 years old and the badly congested Cincinnati bridge at 63 years old.