The People’s Public Hearing Event Recap
On Thursday, August 10th, around 65 people gathered at Trinity Episcopal Church for The People’s Public Hearing for the Fourth Street Bridge. The event began with an intro from Devou Good Foundation’s Matt Butler, sharing about community engagement thus far, mobility trends, and where things stand with KYTC.
A link to the evening’s presentation can be found here, and the link to the recording can be found here.
While there are community wins to be celebrated, there’s also a long way to go in the next 30 days. Hours before the People’s Hearing, KYTC announced their renderings for an overbuilt, 4-lane 4th Street Bridge. The timing is evidence that public pressure is working.
Community Wins
KYTC’s renderings include two 12-foot shared-use paths on the north and south sides of the 4th Street Bridge for pedestrians, bikers, and people using mobility devices, physically separating people from vehicles.
Recently resigned Covington Commissioner Nolan Nicaise, who attended the People’s Hearing as a private citizen, shared, “As a commissioner, I received hundreds and hundreds of emails urging me to right-size the bridge. It was by far the most organized email campaign while I was in office, so good job. And there is an update from KYTC this afternoon that showed that that effort is working.”
Long-time Covington resident Gina Estes started off public comment by sharing another community win: the story of Licking Riverside Residents in the 2000s who learned of plans that called for the 4th Street Bridge replacement to have six lanes. Estes shares,
“Many volunteers worked for many years to affect a change, [advocating] for strategic planning that wasn’t happening already and [volunteering] on those planning boards to ensure that a change would come about. I’m really grateful that the transportation cabinet and the decision-makers were receptive to that. We got it down from 6 lanes to 4. We shouldn’t give up. We got that far—let’s fight for that last one, because there’s still one too many.”
In an interview for Cincinnati Business Courier entitled, “Covington, Newport residents blast Kentucky’s $68M Licking River Bridge renderings” Matt Butler shared, “No one at KYTC has been able to give us a straight answer on the fourth lane. The only answer we’ve gotten is that it just has to be. It’s really unusual for engineers that do their work based on data to say something like that.”
Cory Wilson, with KYTC District 6, stating that safety is a top priority, shared in an interview with WCPO, “What we’re showing now, they’re very preliminary concepts. They’re very early designs. So they’re subject to change quite a bit.”
According to the KYTC website, this next month is the time for constituents to give feedback on the designs, with KYTC making a final bridge type selection in October.
Expert Presentations
After Matt Butler’s introductory update, the People’s Hearing started off with testimony from Brian Goubeaux, a Senior Engineer in the Division of Transportation and Planning in Cincinnati, as well as a Covington resident who rides across the bridge 3-5x a week.
Goubeaux estimated that by keeping the 4th Street Bridge open to traffic during construction, as opposed to a full teardown of the bridge, costs will be 10-20% higher and take 20-40% longer to build. Complete teardown also removes the lane shift which increases danger and the likelihood of westbound drivers striking buildings.
Mel McVay, Senior City Planner in the Division of Transportation and Planning in Cincinnati, shared, “I am primarily responsible for the city’s pedestrian safety program, which has basically become a traffic calming program. But I am also a resident of Covington, so this is really important to me personally.”
McVay continues, “Typically, we see speeding in Cincinnati because there are more lanes that are necessary, and it creates this wide-open feel and experience for drivers that psychologically makes you feel like you can go faster.” Data shows that 84% of drivers currently speed on 4th Street Bridge.
“That is almost the bulk of my day-to-day job, is finding ways to reuse these excess travel lanes…In the 15 years I’ve worked in transportation planning, I’ve never had to expand a street because we underestimated how much traffic there was going to be. It’s always the opposite, [always reducing].”
“In short, I would say that the current designs just do not reflect best practice in current transportation design.” McVay shares that in cities across the US, everyone is dealing with the issue of streets that were over-designed and are now being retrofitted.
“It’s just really unfortunate that KYTC isn’t quite on board with best practices. But hopefully, if we keep talking about it enough, they’re going to hear our voices.”
Lastly, John Schneider, a founding board member of Downtown Cincinnati Inc and a frequent speaker on rail transit, spoke on advocating for prepping the streetcar. Explaining the process and meaning of a sacrificial slab (about 30 min into the People’s Hearing livestream), Schneider emphasizes, “Let the future unfold as it may want to do. Box out the bridge depth for future rails now. Don’t box out the future by building the bridge without provisions for future rails.”
Public Comment
During Public Comment, Covington resident and bike commuter Sheila Gray advocated for a safe, 3-lane bridge, sharing that while separated bike and pedestrian lanes will address safety concerns, there’s still work to do. “We want to keep travel speeds down. We know that the best way to do that is to keep it to the current 3 travel lanes.”
Gray also advocated for the streetcar, sharing her experience planning experiential learning field trips for students: “They love taking the streetcar and are always excited about those field trips. So I’m doing my part. I’m training the future generation to use public transit. Now, we need to make sure that we build this bridge to support an expansion of the rail system of public transit.”
Covington resident Joe Hartke pointed out that KYTC’s renderings don’t include shade or trees. Hartke shared that KYTC’s designs are “unpleasant compared to [Hub+Weber’s] Spoke”, emphasizing that trees are something that’s overlooked when you just drive around in a car, but something that pedestrians think about a lot.
Cincinnati resident Dylan Lurk shared that he’s a regular user of the 4th Street Bridge, walking and biking across the bridge regularly and driving at times. Lurk shares, “I’ve never once driven across the bridge and found myself in any extensive traffic at all. It’s always free-flowing, and so any expansion in capacity is just absolutely unnecessary in my experience.”
Kathy Cunningham, president of Queen City Bike, emphasized, “Four lanes are unnecessary, harmful, and expensive.” and that three lanes are enough. “KYTC’s own scoping study published in 2016 found that 3 lanes are enough for current and future traffic demands.” Cunningham continued to present data that shows that KYTC’s current designs are not in line with their own standards and pedestrian safety goals.
Covington resident Gina Estes sharing public testimony
Gina Estes, a Covington resident for almost 30 years, focused on the disastrous impact of a car-centric, speed-driven society. “We have to break this way of thinking that transportation is about as many cars as possible getting from point A to point B as fast as possible.”
Estes continued, “As a society, I feel like we’re stuck in this way of thinking, just add more lanes, it’s all about cars…Traffic studies have established the need is not there. Spewing more blacktop to induce demand is not wise planning.”
Richard Addison, a Newport resident for 10 years, shared that he was born and raised in New York City, with most of his family members consisting of the public transportation working committee. As someone who utilizes public transportation most of the time and crosses 4th Street Bridge one or two days out of the week, Addison shares, “I am currently a resident of Newport and I work in Covington” *with a pause for emphasis*
“Oh, the joy it would be to have a bridge that’s set up for public transportation, not just for a streetcar, but for regular buses. Imagine the time that I would save.” Addison closes with an encouragement: “I encourage all of you who have done the work so far: please continue the fight…Let’s think of safety. Let’s think of what’s right.”
Again and again during The People’s Public Hearing, community members appealed to the need for the 4th Street Bridge to be safe, sustainable, and created for the community it serves. Experts and members of the public alike pointed to data, statistics, and to the irrationality and irresponsibility of a 4-lane bridge.
The time to continue to advocate for a safe, 3-lane 4th Street Bridge inclusive of everyone is now. Keep speaking up. It's making an impact. The decisions made now will have ripple effects for future generations. Let's keep making noise.
Press
Cincinnati Enquirer, "Kentucky unveils updated designs for key NKY bridge", reporting by Patricia Gallagher Newberry
"Despite community objections, Kentucky is still calling for a four-lane bridge to connect Covington and Newport.
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet on Thursday released four possible designs for a new $68 million Fourth Street Bridge over the Licking River – all with four lanes to replace the current three-lane bridge. It is one of just two bridges inside Interstate 275 that connect Newport and Covington.
The state made the four concepts public just hours before opponents of the four-lane plan, organized by the Greater Cincinnati Coalition for Transit and Sustainable Development, were staging a meeting to present alternative design ideas.”
WCPO, "KYTC reveals four design options for 4th Street Bridge, all with shared-use walkways", reporting by Felicia Jordan, Kristen Swilley
"Gina Estes, who has lived in Covington for close to 30 years, said there are safety concerns with adding another vehicle lane.
'More wide-open lanes— it's not a traffic-calming solution,' Estes said. 'Covington deserves better than that. We all deserve better than that to be blanketed in black top and to accommodate vehicles going faster and faster.'"
Local 12, "Designs released for bridge between Newport and Covington", reporting by Christian Hauser
"Transportation and safety advocates like the Devou Good Foundation President Matt Butler said they are happy with the separated pedestrian and bike paths”“However, one aspect of the design Butler and others have been fighting is the expansion to four lanes, partly because it will increase the distance folks must cross to get from one side to there other.
'That's going to expose more pedestrians and people on bikes to more speeding drivers. The Fourth Street corridor is already the number three most dangerous corridor in all of Northern Kentucky,'"
Cincinnati Business Courier, "Covington, Newport residents blast Kentucky's $60M Licking River Bridge renderings", reporting by Brian Planalp (subscription only article)
"Residents of Covington and Newport on Aug. 10 balked at state transportation officials' proposal that the new Fourth Street Licking River Bridge expand to four lanes.Residents framed the new designs from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) as incongruous with the agency’s own pedestrian safety goals and out of touch with data that shows the bridge isn’t used nearly as much as is claimed."
