Construction on the first of two inner belt bridges was officially kicked off Monday with a groundbreaking attended by Ohio’s Republican Governor John Kasich and US Senator George Voinovich. The work promises to complicate daily commutes with scheduled exit closings around Cleveland's Tremont neighborhood.
Cuyahoga County Executive Ed Fitzgerald told a crowd of public officials though the construction will be a boom to the region.
"This is a lot more than a bridge project," he says. "It's a bridge to a lot of different things. There are over 50,000 unemployed-that's a conservative number-individuals here in Cuyahoga County and some of them are going to be put back to work because of this project. Not just the direct construction but all the spin-off value that is going to come from the expenditure here.
Construction on the six-lane bridge is set to be complete by 2014