LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) — In early 2015, then-Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear announced a $22 million investment in the Kennedy Bridge as a “more complete and long-lasting overhaul” of the aging span between Louisville and Jeffersonville, Indiana.

The work was a bonus to construction underway on the Interstate 65 crossing as part of the Ohio River Bridges Project, which resulted in the RiverLink system. It added a new roadway, including four expansion joints that let the Kennedy’s surface contract and expand as the weather changes.

But the makeover has been anything but long-lasting. A series of concerns has plagued the Kennedy’s driving surface in the decade since, resulting in sporadic lane closures, reported flat tires, booming noises and millions of additional dollars needed to shore up the bridge.

Since 2018, when an expansion joint dislodged and prompted emergency work, Kentucky has spent $1.4 million on temporary repairs, according to documents WDRB News obtained under public records requests.

Later that year, an inspection concluded that the joints “have had multiple issues due to errors in construction.”

The state now plans a permanent fix paid for with toll dollars: a $6.9 million project starting this summer to replace all four joints that were new just a decade ago and anticipated to last into the 2050s.

“The expectation at that time was that they should last throughout the lifespan of the bridge, the entire time,” said James Ballinger, Kentucky’s state highway engineer. “But, unfortunately, we’ve realized that they did not, and we’ve had to come in and make some intermediate repairs.”

The joint on the northernmost end of the bridge, near the Indiana state line, has frustrated residents of the Harbours Condominiums in Jeffersonville for years. At its worst, “it’s like a thunderstorm or like a stage production where you’re trying to make fake thunder — and it was deafening,” said Terri Wedding, who lives in the middle of the complex.

Closer to the bridge, homeowners’ association president John Hoselton said he’s used to some noise living near an interstate. But he claims the noise from trucks driving over the joint — described as “booms that sound like bombs going off” — has caused people to lose sleep.

“You can’t block it out all the time,” Hoselton said. “So whatever is wrong with the expansion joint over here is fixed temporarily, and then it’s just a couple months and it’s in the same place again.”

Kentucky hired Chicago-based Walsh Construction under an $860 million contract to oversee the downtown part of the bridges project, which included retrofitting the Kennedy for southbound traffic and rebuilding the “Spaghetti Junction” interchange near downtown Louisville.

State transportation officials repeatedly have said there was no warranty for the work when asked why Kentucky has used public funds for the intermittent repairs.

But WDRB’s review of Walsh’s contract with Kentucky shows that the state can pursue legal action for “defective” work, even after the state’s formal acceptance of design and construction work.

Pressed on those contract provisions, Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokesperson Morgan Woodrum said the agency “continues to assess all available avenues for addressing construction-related concerns. This includes evaluating contractual provisions related to latent defects and other potential remedies while also recognizing some issues are not identifiable at the time of construction.”

A Walsh spokesman did not respond to a request for comment for this story.

‘Errors in construction’

The $22 million overhaul of the Kennedy came as Kentucky and Indiana were in the final stretch of the Ohio River Bridges Project. The bridge closed for most of 2016 before fully reopening that October. 

Just two months later, a Kentucky inspector noted that the joint at the Indiana state line near the Harbours was “slightly misaligned,” while a banging sound was heard below.  

In April 2018, emergency repairs were needed when one of the joints came loose. Months later, an inspection found that the bridge joints “had multiple issues due to errors in construction,” including air pockets underneath that formed as the concrete deck cured.

Those air pockets, or voids, contributed to bolts at the joints breaking and loosening under heavy loads, the Transportation Cabinet previously told WDRB.

State officials later closely examined all of the bridge’s expansion joints. That led to a sweeping $864,000 project about a year later, in December 2019, that included removing and replacing bolts in all joints and making other repairs, according to construction documents.

More joint repairs have occurred in the years since as authorities promised a permanent fix. Meanwhile, the cost of that work has climbed – from an estimated $1.3 million in 2022 to $2.7 million in 2024.

The $6.9 million contract awarded to Hall Contracting of Kentucky Inc. in January was below the state’s estimate of $8.6 million. Hall’s bid was one of two proposals for the work set to be done by April 2026; the other was $13.2 million.

The increased cost reflects “a combination of inflation, rising material costs, and more detailed project scoping,” Woodrum said.

Kentucky plans to use its share of toll revenue from the RiverLink system, which includes the Kennedy Bridge, to pay for the upcoming project. The toll revenue mainly goes to pay off money borrowed for the bridges project construction.

State highway engineer Ballinger said the new joints should last much longer than the ones installed a decade ago.

“The designers paid special attention to the connection and the embedment of the connectors that connect the new steel expansion joint into the concrete deck,” he said. “And we’ve made some changes in that design that will last much longer. It’s a more robust design with these expansion joints.”

“They didn’t serve the entire life of the bridge. So we’ve looked at it, we’ve evaluated and we’ve designed it in a more robust manner,” he said. 

Sitting on his balcony at the Harbours on a recent morning, Hoselton said he and other residents welcome the upcoming joint replacement work. As Hoosiers living next to a Kentucky-owned bridge, he said, “no one listens to us.”

Does he trust that this time the expansion joints will, indeed, be fixed?

“I don’t know, we’ll see,” Hoselton said. “Cautiously optimistic, maybe?”

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