Louisville Bridge Is Falling Down

And so are dozens of other bridges here in Kentucky, but our senators Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul tell us that here in the super best most awesome country ever, our government has no place and no money to fix a freaking bridge.  So of course the infrastructure we have is falling apart.

The Sherman Minton Bridge, one of three major bridges spanning the Ohio River between Louisville, KY and southern Indiana, was among the Kentucky bridges listed as deficient. And last night, the Sherman Minton Bridge was closed after further deficiencies, including cracks, were found in a load-bearing part of its structure. The Louisville Courier-Journal reports:

The Sherman Minton Bridge was closed late Friday afternoon and will remain shut down indefinitely after officials discovered cracks in the span.

Will Wingfield, a spokesman for the Indiana Department of Transportation, said officials “do not have an estimate” on how long it will take to repair and reopen the bridge, which carries Interstate 64 traffic across the Ohio River.

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R) ordered the closure of the bridge, as the state of Indiana maintains and operates the bridge. But the 49-year-old bridge serves as a major thoroughfare for Louisville, McConnell’s hometown and Kentucky’s largest city, carrying 50,000 people a day into or out of the city, according to Chuck Wolfe, spokesman for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. The state of Kentucky assists in maintenance and evaluation of the bridge’s structure. While the Sherman Minton Bridge is closed, much of its regular daily traffic will be re-routed over another bridge that was already slated to be inspected for structural damage Monday.

Ironically that's the same bridge I used just recently on my trip to visit Bon in Missouri a couple months back, and I crossed it twice.  And it's not just the Sherman Minton that's in bad shape, in fact, a full third of the bridges here in Kentucky are considered deficient or obsolete.  Putting Americans to work to repair these bridges in Kentucky and other states seems like a pretty smart idea to me, but our lawmakers are convinced the bridges will magically fix themselves if only we eliminate corporate taxes or something.

It's amazing.  You'd think lawmakers here in Kentucky would be falling down all over themselves to stop these bridges from falling down.