The AARoads Blog

Rounding out the northern component of our trip, covering Interstate 64 east through eastern Kentucky to Charleston and a rehash of the West Virginia Turnpike south among other revisits of roads previously driven. Several more projects worth mentioning on this drive and we cover some in detail below

We begin our day at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky and discover one of a handful of state named shields for Interstate 64. This particular assembly is found along Kentucky 686 (Indian Mound Drive), a circumferential arterial around the city. KY-686 is signed as east-west, even on the north-south routing of the state route.

This Kentucky 11 shield includes the rarely seen Highway Gothic Series A.

Kentucky 2 north at the beginning of Kentucky 59 near Exit 156 of Interstate 64.

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Road news and notes from the drive between Travelers Rest, South Carolina and Canton, Ohio.

Signs of construction along U.S. 25 northbound near East Flat Rock south of Hendersonville (compare this scene with this 2007 view). Widening of the two-lane highway is underway to bring it up to four-lane Interstate standards. At-grade intersections with Kay Road and other residential roads will be handled by a new frontage road built along the northbound (east) side of the new freeway. Completion of the overall project is expected by August 2012.

New signs (see the old ones here) posted at Exit 49 (junction U.S. 64) on Interstate 26 west & U.S. 25 north still ignore the fact that U.S. 74 shares the same stretch of highway. Southbound (eastbound) signs also omit the overlap.

Associated with ARRA projects, Interstate 26 at North Carolina 146 work involves the widening of N.C. 146 between N.C. 191 and U.S. 25 near Skyland. The concrete surface of Interstate 26 from Exit 37 north toward Exit 33 is now asphalt. What appeared to be a new configuration of the Exit 37 diamond interchange was nothing more than the building of Biltmore Park Town Square nearby. See the 2007 photo of the same location for the changes to the area.

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Today’s thoughts involve reflections on the Interstate 95 corridor between Florida and the northeast U.S. The reviled freeway in some cases, Interstate 95 suffers from overrunning by travelers headed to/from Florida, a number that increases significantly every year. Respective DOT’s are trying to keep up with growth with various expansion and interchange projects throughout the 800-mile drive from Daytona Beach northward to Washington, D.C. Profiled below are some of the construction projects we’ve encountered over the last few weeks. 

Interstate 95 is rather docile in Volusia County south of Interstate 4, but north of it is a different story. The influx of traffic from Orlando and its array of resort areas puts a crush of traffic on the freeway between Daytona Beach and Jacksonville. Surprisingly not all of this corridor is yet to six-lane capacity. St. Johns and Volusia Counties are already six-lanes, but Flagler County is not. Therefore crews are out working on the expansion of Interstate 95 to eliminate the bottleneck between Interstate 4 and Interstate 295. From the FDOT website, expansion of the 18.6-mile stretch in Flagler County began on March 14, 2005. Completion date is unclear.

In a related project pertaining to the Interstate 95 corridor, upgrading of the Florida 9A (Future Interstate 295) diamond interchange with Florida 202 (J. Turner Butler Boulevard – JTB) is also underway. Florida 9A provides an eastern bypass of downtown Jacksonville as well as a commuter route for southeast Jacksonville. The substandard interchange between the two freeways is the only thing preventing the eastern beltway from becoming part of the Interstate 295 corridor. Upon completion of the $80.5-million project, high-speed flyovers will shuttle motorists between Interstate 295 and the JTB. Work began in July 2005 with a 2009 completion date anticipated.

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