Friday, October 20, 2006

Little Miami bridge opposed
Environmentalists file lawsuit

By Dan Hassert
Post staff reporter

Three environmental groups seeking to protect the scenic Little Miami River have sued to stop construction of a highway bridge designed to keep drivers from having to loop through Northern Kentucky to get downtown from Cincinnati's eastern suburbs.

The multi-lane bridge, which is still in the study stage, is part of the Eastern Corridor Project, a $1.3 billion set of transportation improvements that include linking Ohio Route 32 to Interstate 71 via Red Bank Road near Newtown.

But the environmental groups - the Sierra Club, Rivers Unlimited and Little Miami Inc. - say the bridge would create sprawl and result in noise, air pollution and a jarring aesthetic change that would irreparably harm a delicate natural treasure.

"The biology down there depends on ... lack of disturbance to habitat," said Mike Fremont, president emeritus of Rivers Unlimited and a regular canoeist on the Little Miami, which is part of the nation's Wild and Scenic River system.

"If there was such crying need for this thing, they would have built it a long time ago."

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington against the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

Specifically, it alleges that the federal agencies violated federal law requiring them to consider alternatives to building a new highway and requiring them to consider the impact on the Little Miami. The groups say the federal agencies have continued to overestimate the benefits of the road and underestimate its environmental impact.

It asks that the June 6 decision approving the new bridge as the preferred alternative be reversed and that the court stop any progress on site preparation, the issuance of bonds and the purchase of right-of-way.

But transportation planners and local government officials say the project, which has been discussed for years, would provide a critical link that would actually help the environment by reducing the collective driving time for Cincinnati metropolitan area drivers.

Opponents "are not taking into account the extra benefits of what this can do for the entire region," said Victoria Peters, director of engineering and operations for the Federal Highway Administration in Ohio.

Roads are already congested, and without major improvements, that congestion will grow worse, commutes will continue to loop through Kentucky and the economic vitality of the region will suffer, said Peters, who had not yet seen the lawsuit.

The road extension and bridge were part of the transportation plan led by the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments in 2000 for a 165-square mile area between downtown Cincinnati and Batavia in Clermont County known as the Eastern Corridor. The study's recommendations included commuter trains, road improvements, expanded bus routes and bike trails in an attempt to deal with an expected population increase of 22 percent by the year 2020.

Creating a spur of Ohio 32 that would cross the Little Miami and hook up with Red Bank Road would cost about $500 million, including a commuter line, said Ted Hubbard, chief deputy Hamilton County engineer.

All told, the Eastern Corridor changes would each day cut 137,000 miles of driving, 15,000 hours of delay and 21,000 hours of driving time, leading to time value savings of $150 million a year, said Hubbard, quoting commonly cited statistics.

That's because the new route would provide a more direct connection between Anderson Township, other eastern suburbs and I-275 (which connects with Route 32 near Eastgate) and the downtown area, and Interstates 71 and 75. To get downtown, drivers now use looping journeys that circle into Kentucky on I-275 and I-471, or take Columbia Parkway or local roads.

The Eastern Corridor study is unusual for a big road project in that it would reduce traffic, Hubbard said. It also would discourage sprawl, not encourage it, because the more direct connection would make developers and businesses more likely to target the urban core and the first ring of suburbs outside the city, he said.

But Fremont said that argument and the alleged traffic "savings" are based on flawed studies that he said were contradicted years ago by a traffic study commissioned by the Sierra Club and others.

"It's a tissue of lies," he said. "If you build a road, people are going to use it."

Opponents of the bridge say OKI and others didn't adequately consider an alternative that would widen an existing bridge that carries Beechmont Avenue over the Little Miami, an allegation that also is a focus of the lawsuit.

The project is in the "Tier II" stage, in which engineering studies and an environmental assessment will help narrow alternatives down to a preferred alignment, Hubbard said. That could take as long as two years, he said.

Peters said she couldn't address specific allegations within the lawsuit since she hadn't seen it, but she said all alternatives were considered and that planners are well aware of the challenge of building over a scenic river.

But the lawsuit says otherwise.

The river is used for canoeing, kayaking, fishing, bird/wildlife viewing, hiking and biking, it says, but it's also important for its diversity of wildlife and as a breeding and feeding ground for animals like the hooded merganser, cormorants and beavers.

Visitors "come to this segment to enjoy the natural river setting with its scenic wooded banks, high bluffs, broad river floodplain, sandy beaches, islands, meandering channel, wildlife, fish, solitude, peace, serenity and quiet," the lawsuit says.

In 2005, the Little Miami was ranked No. 7 on a list of the nation's most endangered and threatened rivers by American Rivers, a Washington-based river conservation group. The ranking cited two threats: the proposed bridge and a sewer expansion on Sycamore Creek.

The lawsuit also notes that concerns about the project have been expressed by several federal agencies, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.

"I love that river, and I've put a lot of my life into it," Fremont said.

Copyright 2006, The Post