January 2002

According to this article , planners in the Cincinnati area are studying possible improvements to the I-75 corridor. I-75 is considered to be the most heavily traveled truck route in North America.

This Cincinnati Enquirer article  reports that work will begin on improving a short section of KY 1303 in Kenton County this March.

The KYTC will be holding a public meeting on February 25, 2002 to discuss a possible new connector to I-64 northeast of Grayson. For more information, see here .

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports in this article  (no longer online) that Harrodsburg Road (US 68) will be widened to four lanes beginning this summer. Work should be completed on the 3.4-mile section between Man o' War Boulevard and Brannon Road in late 2003 or early 2004.

According to this Kentucky Post article , county officials, planners, and engineers are seeking to make improvements to US 25 Dixie Highway in Northern Kentucky. They call it Kenton County's most pressing road need. Dixie Highways runs parallel to I-75, and traffic is increasingly shifting from I-75 to Dixie Highway. Plans have been around for nearly 20 years to improve the road.

The January 16th, 2002 edition of the Floyd County Times  (no longer online) has a picture with a short caption about the demolition of the Town Branch Bridge in Prestonsburg. KYTC engineers are inspecting the bridge to determine how best to destroy it. (The image will disappear from the site soon.)

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet will hold a ground breaking ceremony for the Glasgow Outer Loop on Friday, Jan. 25 at 2:00 p.m. It will be held at the Highland 7 Cinemas on Ky. 90. The loop will be around the northern side of the city and connect to the Louis B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway (future Interstate 66) east and west of the city.

The Ashland Daily Independent reports in this article  that ODOT will close the Ironton-Russell Bridge between Ironton, OH and Russell, KY will be closed if temperatures drop to around 5 degrees below zero. This is due to concerns about the steel structure of the bridge. The University of Cincinnati has been conducting tests on the 80-year-old structure since 1999.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the new Licking River bridge won't be renamed . Northern Kentucky lawmakers had been seeking to rename the new bridge in honor Alvin C. Poweleit, a local doctor and World War II hero. The KYTC recently named the bridge in honor of local Girl Scouts.

The new Licking River Bridge between Covington and Newport has only recently been named in honor of local Girl Scouts; however, a group of Northern Kentucky politicians are seeking to have the bridge renamed in honor of the late Dr. Alvin C. Poweleit, a family physician from Newport and World War II hero. More details can be found in this Cincinnati Enquirer article .

After examining press releases from Congressman Fletcher  (no longer online) and Congressman Rogers , I have learned more specific details about what projects Kentucky's money in the 2002 U.S. Department of Transportation spending bill has been allocated for:

• $20 million for land acquisition and planning efforts for Interstate 66, with an additional $2.5 million provided for ongoing design efforts of I-66 in Pike County.
• $2 million for a new initiative at the University of Kentucky. The Academy for Community Transportation Innovation will educate professionals and study transportation development, planning and design of suburban and rural areas.
• $2 million to help Kentucky establish a statewide clearinghouse for public travel information.
• $2 million for a project to provide traffic information through a universal telephone number (5-1-1). The pilot project will build a first generation 511 call center in Kentucky that could become a national resource for traffic information.
• $15.5 million for bus and bus facility needs across Kentucky.
• $1.5 million for preliminary work on a project to straighten a dangerous section of the Daniel Boone Parkway in Leslie County between mileposts 37 and 44
• $4 million for improved access to the Parkway from the new Clay/Leslie County Industrial Park
• $2 million for continued work on a project to improve US 25N in Rockcastle County to provide for increased traffic at the new Country Music Hall of Fame
• $1.4 million to improve Cold Hill Road, located in the Daniel Boone National Forest in Laurel County
• $995,000 to improve a stretch of Craigs Creek Road on U.S. Forest Service land in Laurel County
• $885,000 for improvements to Kentucky’s Scenic Byways, including the Country Music Highway, the Wilderness Road Heritage Highway and the Cumberland Cultural Heritage Highway.
• $800,000 for the design phase of a 4-lane project on a section of US 27 south of Somerset to Burnside Island.
• $500,000 to widen Leestown Road in Lexington.

The 2002 federal transportation spending bill includes $500,000 for the study of a proposed Heartland Parkway in Taylor, Marion, Washington and Green counties. Despite its name, this road will probably not be a toll road as my understanding is that federal law prohibits the placing of tolls on any road on which federal money has been spent. Instead, if built, this route would probably be a four lane reconstruction of KY 55. The proposed road would connect to the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway near Columbia and the Blue Grass Parkway near Springfield. More details can be found here , here , and here  (no longer online).

According to this Union County Advocate article , the new Morganfield Bypass is now open. KY 3393 is a two lane road that bypasses the downtown section of Morganfield. The bypass begins at US 60 East of Morganfield and then crosses the Beaver Dam Road, KY 56 East, US 60 West, KY 130 and ends at KY 56 West and has officially been named the "Sam M. McElroy Jr. Expressway."

The KYTC Planning website has been updated with materials for a planning study to look at improvements to US 60 at the Ballard-McCracken County line.

According to this Owensboro Messenger-Inquirer article  (no longer online) a pair of sharp curves at railroad grade crossings in Henderson County on US 60 will be straightened this year. The project will take about 10 months to complete. The two 90 degree curves will be replaced by a bridge over the railroad and two sweeping curves.

This Danville Advocate-Messenger article  (no longer online) reports that the KYTC is nearing a decision on a route for US 27 reconstruction in Garrard County. Some citizens are concerned about the impact the new route might have on a historic site in the area. US 27 is to be reconstructed as a four lane highway from the Kentucky River to KY 34.

According to this June 18, 2001 article  from the Bowling Green Daily News the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has considered reconstructing KY 259 from the current I-65 and Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway to the intersection of KY 259 and KY 101 near Brownsville. A public meeting on this issue was held in July of 2001. An early report on the proposal can be found here . This project is in the same area as the proposed I-66.

According to US460Online.com  (a KYTC website for the project) a proposed interchange at Wolfpit has been eliminated from plans for US 460 in Pike County. This will reduce the cost of the project and reduce the number of families which must be relocated. Right of way acquisition is scheduled to begin in the spring.

The Division of Planning's 2002 Official Highway Map can now be downloaded from here . The map now indicated the proposed corridors for Interstate 66 and Interstate 69.

A number of new planning studies have been released including a new connector near Grayson in Carter County , reconstruction of US 27 in Garrard and Lincoln Counties , reconstruction of KY 101 in Warren County , reconstruction of KY 90 in Barren County , and reconstruction of US 25 in Boone County .

Update: The KYTC has also launched two new websites devoted to particular projects: KY52.com  for improvements to KY 52 in Garrard and Madison counties and E2RC.com  for information about the Elizabethtown-Radcliff Connector.

The new bridge over the Licking River between Covington and Newport locally known as the "Short Way" bridge has been named in honor of the local Girl Scout council. More information can be found in this press release .

This press release  details the transportation cabinet's preparation for winter weather. Kentucky has a toll free road information telephone number at 1-800-4KY-ROADS.

This Bowling Green Daily News article  reports that work is progressing on several road projects in Warren County. Work is expected to finish early on a project to widen I-65 to six lanes between Oakland and the Barren River. Work on I-65 between the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway and Oakland is expected to begin this spring. Work is also on schedule on rebuilding Scottsville Road (US 231) between Bowling Green and Alvaton. Eventually US 231 will be widened to four lanes between Bowling Green and Scottsville. Work on a new interchange between I-65 and KY 234 has slowed for the winter. Also work on the Natcher Parkway is expected to begin soon. The interchange between the Natcher Parkway and I-65 will be reconstructed south of its current location.

This Courier-Journal article  reports that Transportation Secretary James Codell has called for am "internal process audit" to determine what the transport cabinet has done wrong after recent scandals involving bridge inspections, fraud in a minority business program, and problems in the driver's licenses office.

This Courier-Journal article  reports that the city of Prospect dislikes all alternatives for an eastern bridge over the Ohio River in Jefferson County. Their favorite of the alternatives, however, is the alternative that bypasses Prospect. The Prospect city council claims that several proposed routes would make sections of the town uninhabitable.

The Courier-Journal reports in this article  that a 3.3 extension to Hurstbourne Parkway will begin in May. The road will be extended from Bardstown Road to Fern Valley Road in Jefferson County. A gas pipeline has to be moved to allow for construction.

This Courier-Journal reports  that the number of collisions between vehicles and elks is increasing on Kentucky's highways. Elk were reintroduced into Kentucky in 1997 and in 2000 there were around 30 reported collisions with elk on Kentucky's roadways.

The Ashland Daily Independent reports in this Dec. 30, 2001 article  that the KYTC is testing SMA asphalt on a stretch of US 23 in Boyd and Lawrence counties. SMA asphalt is an idea imported from Europe and is designed to handle heavy traffic and large trucks.