Bridge porn raincoating reaches thunderous orgasmic crescendo as preparedness for pass-through toll dodging remains nil.

Of course, the least imaginative east end bridge name possible was the final choice, and that's exactly what we've come to expect from brain-dead state ruling elites.

Not since Dagny Taggart swooned over Readen Metal has there been such breathless coverage of concrete and steel, though in terms of dreadful photo ops, it was Jeffersonville's turn to pull a short straw.

Actually, a can of multinational swill might be the ideal metaphor for the history and practice of the Ohio River Bridges Boondoggle, although it's doubtful Moore grasps this. Cheers, Mike. The campaign finance slush River Ridge spills in a shift dwarfs that produced in New Gahania.

Speaking of which, here's the view from the News and Tribune:

And here is the way Team Gahan saw it:

Toll dodging begins in just a few days, folks. For bridge opening coverage at the News and Tribune, go here.

Beilman: "We didn't miss this story, you missed our coverage of it."

Hey, fair's fair.

I wrote:

Utica: "Caught in the path of an approaching juggernaut being driven by everyone else's development goals."

It's surprising that N and T's platoon of Clark County reporters missed this story. Perhaps they were at Eastside, rolling out the folding chairs for Cooking School.

One of the members of the Clark County newspaper's platoon, Elizabeth Beilman, left a new comment on the post, and I reprint it here verbatim.

Roger,

We didn't miss this story, you missed our coverage of it.

Enjoy:

http://www.newsandtribune.com/news/developer-s-plans-near-east-end-bridge-thwarted/article_7600a7c0-a37d-11e5-8ff5-cfe995e6cc19.html

http://www.newsandtribune.com/news/utica-protests-location-of-indot-maintenance-facility/article_004a2db6-ae78-11e5-8259-67d9e5f3d61c.html

http://www.newsandtribune.com/news/utica-seeks-help-from-state-on-road-damage-from-bridge/article_19dab3fa-d055-11e5-bd3a-af2f3f08c569.html

Kindly,

Elizabeth Beilman

Utica: "Caught in the path of an approaching juggernaut being driven by everyone else's development goals."

Perhaps "told ya so" isn't the most diplomatic utterance.

It's surprising that N and T's platoon of Clark County reporters missed this story. Perhaps they were at Eastside, rolling out the folding chairs for Cooking School.

Utica leader on bridge: 'Our town's destroyed', by Lexy Gross (Courier-Journal)

When the East End bridge project began in 2012, the top elected official of Utica, Ind., was "thrilled to death" for the span that would connect his town of 800 to Prospect, Ky.

Those dreams of economic development and growth now seem far-fetched, said Utica Council President Steve Long as he sat in the town's community center, his truck parked out back with fresh bread in the backseat awaiting delivery.

"Our town's destroyed," he said. "... I know construction takes time and makes a mess, but you reap the benefits. Utica is not reaping the benefits."

He's absolutely right. It should be named the Eliza Harris Bridge.

In the overall scheme of things, we live in a region that values dull uniformity, and isn't afraid to wield it like a deadly weapon. We're positively evangelical about rote mediocrity.

This explains why certain of our legislators have again chosen to walk the rutted path of deadening predictability and advocate naming the new east end bridge for Lewis and Clark. The state recently electing Matt Bevin as governor chose Abraham Lincoln as the name for the downtown bridge, pointing to another facet of life hereabouts, namely an immunity to irony.

But it gets even worse. With living white males having narrowed the naming competition to dead white males, Indiana's fascist governor is said to prefer Ronald Reagan. I'd rather cut out the middle (dead white) man and cast Steve Stemler and Ron Grooms in a remake of Bedtime for Bonzo, to be filmed at One Southern Indiana.

Keep a pail nearby as you read the recurring, sad litany.

Lewis and Clark bridge naming resolution dies in Senate committee, by Elizabeth Beilman (Clark County Jail TV Guide)

Public safety concern hold-up in naming process

INDIANAPOLIS — The official name of the east-end bridge is still uncertain, since a resolution to name it after explorers Meriwether Lewis and William Clark died in Senate committee.

My friend LP has sensibly suggested an alternative. He proposes we name the east end bridge the Eliza Harris Bridge, so as to "celebrate the literal freedom crossing that the Kentucky/Indiana border and Ohio River represents."

Eliza Harris: Famous Escaped Slave

Eliza Harris was the name informally given to a slave sheltered by Levi Coffin after a precarious escape on treacherous ice floes with her baby. The event was retold to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who was inspired by the brave slave and based her character, Eliza Harris, upon the slave in her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. Levi Coffin and his wife thereafter referred to the unknown slave as Eliza Harris.

Or, LP adds, perhaps the Harris-Coffin Bridge; after all, while white and male, the abolitionist Coffin afforded shelter to the escaped slave. It's real history that genuinely matters, and Eliza Harris has the tremendous advantage of NOT being yet another dead white male.

I replied to LP that given the limitations of our creativity-challenged area "leadership" cadre, it's almost impossible to even imagine pitching this idea to Grooms or Stemler. Just try. LP did, and produced this imagined dialogue about the Harris-Coffin Bridge.

Grooms: Coffin was an abortionist? Why would we celebrate that?!?
LP: No, an ABOLITIONIST.
Stemler: Oh, yeah. A tree doctor.

[I leave room]

For once ... just for once ... could we think outside the claustrophobic confines of our cultural box?

Lewis & Clark Bridge? It's better than the Stemler & Stemler Bridge, but only marginally.

Stemler (Kerry) & Stemler (Steve) sounded too much like Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Sacco & Vanzetti and Bonnie & Clyde, so of course Rep. Stemler opted for the most trite and predictable possibility. It's who he is, and what he does.

Whatever happened to NAC's excellent idea of selling the bridge's naming rights to K-Y Jelly?

Is this the new name for the East End Bridge?, by Marty Finley (Louisville Business First)

We could be getting closer to the naming of the East End Bridge that will connect eastern Jefferson County to southern Indiana near Utica when it is completed later this year.

Indiana state Rep. Steve Stemler, D-Jeffersonville, filed a resolution with the Indiana General Assembly to name the East End Bridge as the Lewis & Clark Bridge.

Morrison: "Understand how the East End Bridge or the downtown bridge is going to be financed? You likely don’t."

Go the Insider Louisville, read the entirety of Curt's chronicle of a fiasco, and resort to strong drink.

---

Shocker: Plan calls for building East End bridge,THEN figuring out how to pay for it

By CURTIS MORRISON | Published: FEBRUARY 27, 2013

“So, how much is that baby gonna’ run us?” Don’t worry about … it’s public funding magic.

(Editor’s note: Terry Boyd also contributed to this post.)

If you think you know everything there is to know about the $2.6 billion bridges projects – either the East End bridge project or the downtown bridge – you don’t.

In fact, we’d go so far to bet you don’t know the half of it. (Which is not an accident.)

If you think you understand how the East End Bridge or the downtown bridge is going to be financed, you likely don’t.

If you think you understand the tolling mechanism, think again.

To tell you everything never reported in the conventional media would take a book.

So, for this post, we’re going to focus on the East End Bridge, which is being built by Indiana.

Through the magic of something called “availability payments,” the East End Bridge (Indiana’s project) is on a schedule to be essentially built before the process to finance it even begins.

Seriously.

At The Urbanophile: "Indiana’s Bridge Deal Boondoggle, Part 3 – INDOT’s Mini-Big Dig."

Links to the first two parts of the series are included, so click through to The Urbanophile, and join Renn in asking: Does INDOT really know what it’s getting into with this tunnel and this project segment?

Indiana’s Bridge Deal Boondoggle, Part 3 – INDOT’s Mini-Big Dig, by Aaron M. Renn (The Urbanophile)


In previous installments in this series I highlighted how Indiana managed to increase its share of the Louisville bridges project by $200 million even as it bragged that the total price tag had gone down by $1.5 billion, how this led directly to Indiana having to allocate $432 million in regular highway funds to the project, and how tolling puts Indiana at significant risk of paying an even greater share of the project.

Today I’ll highlight how Indiana is stepping into a potential quagmire by agreeing to take responsibility for building a high-risk mini-Big Dig tunnel under a portion of Louisville’s most affluent community.