Will history be rewritten?

Clark County

SO YOU KNOW

Drumanard timeline:
• AUGUST 1983 — home entered in the National Register of Historic Places.
• OCTOBER 1988 — Fitzhugh filed an objection to the property being designated historic.
• NOVEMBER 1991 — Fitzhugh recants objection.
• JANUARY 1992 — the Drumanard Estate entered into the National Register of Historic Places.
• SEPTEMBER 2010 — historic designation challenged.
• NOVEMBER 2010 — removal from the National Register denied.

Cost of the east-end bridge (modified alternative):
• Kentucky approach — $794.8 million
• Indiana approach — $231.7 million
• East-end bridge —$326.2 million
• Total cost for the east-end portion of the project — $1.35 billion

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Paul Fetter

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December 10, 2011

Group working to remove tunnel from bridges project

By BRADEN LAMMERS Braden.Lammers@newsandtribune.com The News and Tribune Sat Dec 10, 2011, 08:42 AM EST

Some Ohio Valley residents are calling for further cost-cuts on the Ohio River Bridges project, even after the Federal Highway Administration has approved a slimmed-down version to add mobility between Louisville and Southern Indiana.

Paul Fetter, co-founder of No 2 Bridge Tolls and an incoming Clarksville Town Councilman, hopes by cutting costs on the Kentucky approach to the east-end bridge, the overall price tag will be reduced enough that tolling would not be necessary to cover a funding gap.

“If we can get this approach down to $300 million I think the project catches fire,” he said.

Fetter’s plan to reduce the cost by nearly $500 million is to remove a tunnel planned on the Kentucky approach, in Prospect.

However, several obstacles stand in the way of his concept from becoming a reality, including changing the designation of an historic property.

“One of the ways we can make this project to work for Southern Indiana is to get the east-end approach reduced, and to do that we’ll have to delist the Drumanard Estate,” Fetter said.

CURRENT PLANS

Estimates for the modified selected alternative version of the project put the cost of the east-end approach on the Kentucky side at $795 million. The cost is a $90.4 million reduction from the original plan related to the 2003 record-of-decsion.

One of the major changes that cut the cost was a reduction in the number of lanes planned for the east-end bridge. Project planners cut a proposed six lane highway — expandable up to eight lanes — down to a four lane highway with expandable up to six lanes. Included in the changes were the reductions to lanes in a 2,000-foot tunnel that will run under U.S. 42 and the historic Drumanard Estate, cutting the width per tunnel from 72 feet to 44 feet.

The cost to construct the tunnel is estimated at $255 million, according to the appendix of the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

But if any substantial changes were made to the plan, the project would be face a delay, said Gary Valentine, project manager for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.

In a previous report, Valentine said a delay would cost the project $10 million per month and removing the tunnel would push back the project by up to three years.

However, during a telephone interview in late-November, Valentine did not quantify how long of a delay would be created if the tunnel was removed from the project and said only that “it does add some time.”

MORE MODIFICATIONS?

Valentine was more definitive on whether or not modifications would be considered for the tunnel running under U.S. 42 and the Drumanard Estate.

“Anything other than a bored-shaft tunnel is not an option,” he said.

That type of tunnel, along with a cut-and-cover tunnel and an open cut through the approach to the east-end were discussed in the Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement.

According to the appendix of the supplemental summary, “during the public-involvement process, some public comments recommended Federal Highway Administration consider re-evaluating the tunnel in the east-end corridor in Kentucky as a cost-saving measure. For reasons described in the construction options at U.S. 42 and Drumanard Estate Historic district, removal of the tunnel or additional modification to the tunnel design are not reasonable and will not be evaluated further in this Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement.”

Among the reasons offered were that the bored-shaft tunnel created the least amount of impact to the Drumanard Estate. The other approach options were not examined because of the damage that would result to the Drumanard property.

The additional delay, public input period and expected public sentiment were all part of why the other options for the Kentucky approach was not considered.

“Kentucky Transportation Cabinet expects that many members of the public, particularly in Prospect ... would perceive a proposal to consider construction of an open cut through U.S. 42 and the Drumanard Estate Historic District to be a breach of faith on an important commitment made in the 2003 record-of-decision,” according to the appendix document. “As a result of past experiences with the community, KYTC predicts strong public opposition if the open cut is studied again.”

The document also offered figures on how much savings would actually be realized from eliminating the tunnel from the approach to the bridge, pegging them at 5.6 percent of the total project cost over a 70-year life cycle.

Valentine said that even if the tunnel were reconsidered, removing it from the project would not meet the objective of the no-toll proponents.

The total cost of the project — which would build the east-end bridge, a new downtown bridge and reconstruct Spaghetti Junction — is estimated at $2.9 billion, down from an initial estimate of $4.1 billion.