What kind of view is worth $4.2 million to protect? One of the Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati skyline – the Great American Tower with its steel tiara and cylindrical Radisson Hotel Cincinnati Riverfront with its protruding, almost honeycomb-like balconies.
That’s in part what makes Crescent Avenue, in Covington’s Lewisburg Historic District, a prime spot for a pilot project of transparent noise barriers, the first of their kind in Kentucky.
The panels are a high-grade plexiglass that are UV-, scratch-, shatter-, and bullet-resistant, according to Kevin Rust, construction project engineer for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet .
“It deflects the sound back towards the interstate and keeps it from propagating up the hill to the residents,” he said.
That’s especially a concern as preparations are being made for the Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project groundbreaking next year. The $3.6 billion, once-in-a-generation project will run along Interstate 71/75 and construction will likely last for nearly a decade.