Indiana, Kentucky officials to make another push for federal support of Ohio River Crossing
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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowIn 2023, transportation officials in Indiana and Kentucky applied for more than $632 million in federal funding to accelerate the construction of the I-69 Ohio River Crossing (ORX) project in southwest Indiana.
That request was ultimately rejected, but officials are continuing to push for federal support.
Speaking with Inside INdiana Business host Gerry Dick from this week’s Innovate Southwest Indiana event, Evansville Regional Economic Partnership CEO Lloyd Winnecke said talks will resume this month.
“A handful of us plan to meet with Transportation Secretary [Sean] Duffy in mid-May to ask the federal government to consider putting some skin in the game to hopefully accelerate it even more,” Winnecke said.
Winnecke did not specify how much federal funding officials plan to ask for.
The $1.4 billion project will connect Evansville and Henderson, Kentucky via a new, four-lane bridge over the Ohio River.
The first section of the project, which involves work on the Henderson approach to the bridge, began in 2022 and is on pace to be complete this year. The third section, which is the Evansville approach, began last fall and is slated for completion in late 2026.
Section 2 is construction of the bridge itself. A spokesperson for the I-69 ORX project team said preconstruction activities are underway, including includes design, right-of-way coordination, utility coordination and the procurement process.
Construction on the bridge is currently scheduled to begin in 2027 and take about four years to complete. Winnecke said both states recently committed additional funding to maintain that timeline, but officials declined to disclose the amount of that investment.