WASHINGTON — Launching his sales pitch for his recently passed $1 trillion infrastructure bill, Pres. Joe Biden predicted Monday that the notoriously congested Brent Spence Bridge, which connects Cincinnati with Northern Kentucky, will finally get a long overdue overhaul.
The package, which Biden is expected to sign soon, is also seen as the best chance in decades to build a new bridge.
Biden said in an interview with WKRC-TV that he expected the bridge would get funding in the bill that the House passed last week.
Biden is beginning what is expected to be an administration-wide effort to tell the country about what the bill could mean for Americans.
“You all are going to get in the state of Kentucky well over $10 billion,” Biden said in the interview. “It’s listed as one of the most notorious bridges in the country. And so my guess is that that’s going to be the choice that your governors are going to make and want to get done. And we can get it done now.”
The president spotlighted a proposed project in two states that he lost in the 2020 election to begin what is expected to be an extended administration-wide effort to tell the country about what the infrastructure bill could mean for Americans.
Biden and Cabinet members are expected to step up media appearances and visits around the country in the coming weeks to highlight what’s in the legislation. The White House says Biden will visit Baltimore on Wednesday to underscore how the bill will help Americans by upgrading ports and strengthening supply chains.
The busy Brent Spence Bridge has long been a bane of motorists in the both states. The Federal Highway Administration declared the bridge functionally obsolete in the 1990s because its narrow lanes carried more cars than it was designed for.
Biden has previously pointed to the bridge project as the sort of much-needed infrastructure work that would finally get done if Congress passed the legislation. In a July CNN town hall in Cincinnati, he made passing reference to the dangerously outdated Brent Spence, vowing his administration would “fix that damn bridge of yours” if his legislation passed.