Local minority-owned businesses ask for advocacy in Brent Spence Project

A local transit coalition’s concerns about pollution and public transit were overshadowed this Wednesday by concerns from local, minority-owned business owners and workers, who were more concerned with advocating for their economic interests in the Brent Spence Corridor project.

The exchange occurred at a meeting in Covington held by the Coalition for Transit and Sustainable Development of Greater Cincinnati, a group of local nonprofits, businesses and citizens who advocate for improved transit infrastructure in NKY and Greater Cincinnati.

The coalition was hoping to get the word out about a civil rights complaint related to the Brent Spence project the group filed with the Federal Highway Administration’s Office of Civil Rights in 2023. They held the meeting in an effort to get feedback from the populations they hoped to help.

Although the coalition’s statements reflected a desire to reform the corridor project’s design, many of the attendees were more concerned with the project’s economic impacts, especially as it related to local, minority-owned businesses.

“Pollution impact is one thing from a civil rights perspective, but then there’s the impact of jobs and communities and all the money that’s going into the project that then leaves the community and goes out to California or all these other places,” said Gregory Parker, the director of membership services for the Greater Cincinnati & Northern Kentucky African American Chamber of Commerce. “So, that’s something I could really get behind. How do we maintain, and how do we investigate that the money that’s being spent is staying in this community?”

The coalition’s complaint about the project alleges the Brent Spence Project violates the Civil Rights Act by discriminating against people based on their race, color or national origin. The group has been an ongoing critic of the bridge project as well as other transportation projects in the region.

Construction for the estimated $3.6 billion corridor project, which includes a new companion bridge slated for construction next to the existing bridge, is scheduled to begin next year and continue through 2029. The project also entails the widening of I-75, a point the coalition was especially concerned about it as they believe it will lead to increased traffic and pollution.

The coalition first submitted its complaint early in 2023, when it argued that the project’s initial environmental assessment’s finding of no significant impact could potentially violate federal civil rights and environmental laws. The Federal Highway Administration agreed to begin an investigation in late May, shortly after the bridge project completed a supplemental review of the original environmental assessment, which also leveled a finding of no significant impact. The determination had followed months of public input and essentially allowed the construction to move forward in earnest.

The investigation is ongoing, but the coalition’s complaint mirrors those of others who have made criticisms against the project. The coalition pointed to the gutting of Cincinnati’s West End neighborhood in the 1950s and 60s, which occurred as the result of another federal highway project, the construction of I-75.

The construction of I-75 and the subsequent urban renewal campaign eventually led to the displacement of about 27,000 people, almost all of whom were Black, according to the late Cincinnati historian John W. Harshaw, Sr., who wrote a book on the neighborhood’s history. To this day, the neighborhood’s population levels have not returned to the levels they were before the construction, and the highway has left the area carved up into smaller land parcels.

Mackenzie Mason, the community organizer representing the coalition, advocated for a redesign of the bridge project with a smaller footprint and a greater emphasis on public transit.

“We’re basically asking that the Ohio Department of Transportation and Kentucky Transportation Cabinet to look into these claims and basically redesign what the proposal is right now to be more adequate towards public transit and provide more options with that,” said Mason.

She asked for attendees, especially ones from minority populations who would be most affected by the construction, to volunteer to be interviewed by federal investigators, who were planning on coming to the region in August to assess the coalition’s complaint.

Many of the meeting attendees were from the Black business community. They expressed a willingness to work with the coalition to advocate for their interests, but several expressed concern about what they viewed as a lack of a workable remedy to the issues addressed in the coalition’s presentation.

Moreover, several expressed a desire, not to stop the bridge project outright, but rather to ensure that local businesses were benefiting from the huge, multi-billion dollar project both in the form of jobs and business contracts.

“What does that look like for the community at large, the minority community, minority businesses, minority contractors, small businesses in general?” asked Chris Packer, an ironworker. “What does that look like, and are you looking at ways to advocate for that?”

Matt Butler, President of the Devou Good Foundation and member of the coalition, admitted the group had little sway in how the project distributed its contract dollars, but he said he would be willing to work with the meeting attendees on incorporating their concerns into the coalition’s own complaint.

“I really appreciate you guys coming out, but we’re kind of limited in what we can do,” Butler said. “But we want to hear your stories, and we want to make sure that we’re representing the community and getting the best project that we can.”