Bridges
Path Cleared for $4.5B Brent Spence Bridge Project as Costs Mount
No date has yet been set, but a spring 2026 groundbreaking is expected
A groundbreaking for the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor is expected to take place this spring.
Construction of the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor project, which includes building the new companion bridge and work addressing one mile of highway approaches on each side—in Ohio and Kentucky—is moving forward with a recent key approval that allows federal funds to begin to flow for the project.
While no date has been set, a groundbreaking is expected this spring for the new bridge to connect Cincinnati and northern Kentucky over the Ohio River. The cost of the project overall has risen to about $4.5 billion from the previously estimated $3.6 billion, an increase attributed by Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) to a “significant rise in costs for construction materials, goods and services in recent years.”
The new bridge, a companion bridge to the existing 1960s-era Brent Spence Bridge, will be located west of the existing cantilevered truss bridge and will be a cable-stayed structure. Like the existing bridge, it will have two decks.
The project is being overseen by the Ohio Dept. of Transportation and the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, which received approval in March from the Ohio Controlling Body, which manages the state’s budget and financial activities, for authority to finalize construction plans on the project.
Beshear called the approval “a major milestone” for the project that will be led by a joint venture of Walsh Construction and Kokosing.
“The bi-state management team worked closely with the Walsh-Kokosing design-build team to aggressively mitigate costs over the course of the design process. From 2020 through 2025, highway construction costs rose nationally by 61 percent,” an ODOT news release states.
Pay for union construction jobs on the project is expected to start at about $30 an hour. Anyone interested in working on the project should go here.
“This project has been discussed for decades, and we are now at the point where plans are becoming reality,” said Ohio Dept. of Transportation (ODOT) Director Pamela Boratyn in a news release.
The project is expected to generate approximately 6 million hours of work and employ more than 700 skilled tradespeople, with the workforce potentially reaching 1,000 at peak construction.
It is estimated that more than $1 billion dollars worth of freight passes through the Ohio-Kentucky corridor daily. The new bridge is expected to open in 2031, with full project completion in 2033.
