If the ORBP is bringing "$87 billion into the region over the next 30 years," then why are we paying tolls to use them?

One is compelled to be fair, and so I must recognize this article for capturing some of the most stirring examples of Usual Suspects Boondoggle Speak yet recorded.

I'll merely note that auto-centrism is cancer, and leave it at that.

Ohio River bridges hailed as economic leader in infrastructure projects, by Elizabeth Beilman (News and Tribune)

... United States Deputy Secretary of Transportation Victor Mendez on Tuesday called the Ohio River Bridges Project a "perfect example of what is needed throughout this country."

" ... At the end of the day, we all go home, and we go home to our community," Mendez said at a news conference at Waterfront Park in Louisville. "And that's what this [project] is all about — improving our communities from an economic standpoint and really just from a quality of life standpoint."

Most drivers will ignore the fact that Louisville has gotten a pedestrian safety grant.

It does not require the re-animation of Albert Einstein to grasp that if walkability is an aim, something must be attempted to address the hegemony of automobiles on streets originally designed to accommodate all users, but now given over to the internal combustion erection.

The reigning obliviousness of urban drivers is a given; if they cannot be re-educated overnight, as the Department of Transportation grant suggests a couple dozen of them per million dollars expended just might be able to achieve, then redesigning the streets seems the most cost effective and promising course.

Naturally, local politicians and appointed time-servers must want to do something, as opposed to nothing.

U.S. Department of Transportation Announces Winners of Pedestrian Safety Grants

Louisville, New York City and Philadelphia to Receive Funding to Raise Awareness, Provide Education, Increase Enforcement

WASHINGTON – The U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) today announced that Louisville, Philadelphia and New York City will receive grants totaling approximately $1.6 million for public education and enforcement initiatives to improve pedestrian safety. The new grants are part of the Department's Everyone Is a Pedestrian campaign to help communities combat the rising number of pedestrian deaths and injuries that have occurred from 2009 through 2012 ...

... Louisville was awarded $307,000 and will use the funds to create a pedestrian education program for school-aged children and create safe walking routes for senior citizens. In addition, the funds will be used to conduct law enforcement training and crosswalk enforcement activities. In Louisville, a total of six pedestrians were killed in motor vehicle crashes during 2012, representing 10 percent of the city's total traffic fatalities.

"NHTSA reports record-low level of drunk-driving deaths."

Although the source is a typically self-serving Beer Institute press release, the news therein is welcomed, nonetheless. Perhaps some day it will appear in the 'Bamaggregator.

NHTSA reports record-low level of drunk-driving deaths (at BeerPulse)

(Washington, DC) – Drunk-driving deaths fell to a record-low level in 2011, according to recent data released by the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). Fatalities in crashes involving drunk drivers declined to a record-low level in 2011, down 2.5 percent since 2010 and down 53 percent since first measured in 1982.

In 2011, the overall number of highway fatalities fell 1.9 percent from the previous year, to the lowest level in more than six decades ...

 ... While Americans drove fewer miles in 2011 than in 2010, the nearly 2 percent drop in roadway fatalities significantly outpaced the corresponding 1.2 percent decrease in vehicle miles traveled. In addition, updated Fatality Analysis Reporting System (FARS) information released shows 2011 also saw the lowest fatality rate ever recorded, with 1.10 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2011, down from 1.11 deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled in 2010.