I66/Somerset Northern Bypass, Somerset KY

[KentuckyParkways]

I created this topic to update on the northern bypass of Somerset, witch was supposed to be built starting this year, but I'm not sure as I have not been in Shopville in a while. https://somersetkyleads.com/speda-touchstone-energy-lead-interstate-65-spur-project/ The link takes you to a page that states that the Louie B Nunn Parkway would become a spur of I65, most likely I365, before I66.

[abqtraveler]

I created this topic to update on the northern bypass of Somerset, witch was supposed to be built starting this year, but I'm not sure as I have not been in Shopville in a while. https://somersetkyleads.com/speda-touchstone-energy-lead-interstate-65-spur-project/ The link takes you to a page that states that the Louie B Nunn Parkway would become a spur of I65, most likely I365, before I66.

I-66 was originally proposed, but from what I've seen, officials have pretty much scrapped the I-66 concept in favor of converting Kentucky's parkways into a bunch of 3-digit interstate spurs, save for I-69.

[Life in Paradise]

Except for the fact that the road doesn't really go anywhere (destination wise), they could have tagged the Audubon, Natcher, and Nunn parkways with a two digit, and it probably would have flown, since it did in North Carolina.  Available in grid twos would have been 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60 and 62.  You would have had an nice connection between Henderson Ky and London KY (with the extension from Somerset).  It would have made the former Owensboro, KY mayor quite happy to have a 2-di go around his town.

[sparker]

I created this topic to update on the northern bypass of Somerset, witch was supposed to be built starting this year, but I'm not sure as I have not been in Shopville in a while. https://somersetkyleads.com/speda-touchstone-energy-lead-interstate-65-spur-project/ The link takes you to a page that states that the Louie B Nunn Parkway would become a spur of I65, most likely I365, before I66.

I-66 was originally proposed, but from what I've seen, officials have pretty much scrapped the I-66 concept in favor of converting Kentucky's parkways into a bunch of 3-digit interstate spurs, save for I-69.

Yeah...McConnell and his crack team of researchers (or is that researchers on crack?) did no one any favors by floating I-569 for the WKY between I-69 and I-165 (question: why did they stop there?).  This has been discussed in another thread, but quite a few folks think a I-71 extension (with a Louisville-Elizabethtown multiplex with I-65) down that way would be optimal, drawing long-distance traffic from the I-69 corridor.  As far as the Bluegrass is concerned, until some actual plans for a connection to I-64 and/or I-75 are afoot (yeah, right!), just make it I-365 or another appropriately-numbered spur.

Except for the fact that the road doesn't really go anywhere (destination wise), they could have tagged the Audubon, Natcher, and Nunn parkways with a two digit, and it probably would have flown, since it did in North Carolina.  Available in grid twos would have been 46, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 58, 60 and 62.  You would have had an nice connection between Henderson Ky and London KY (with the extension from Somerset).  It would have made the former Owensboro, KY mayor quite happy to have a 2-di go around his town.

Not too shabby of an idea -- I'd do I-54 for that one.  But it seems KY politicos just aren't terribly imaginative when it comes to such things -- or simply not knowledgeable about Interstate numbering, preferring to take the path of least thoughtfulness and place a third-digit prefix as a default.  Sometimes that works (e.g. I-169 on the Pennyrile), but often it's the least useful approach.   

[tidecat]

No other state has an appetite for I-66, so the project appears to be dead at a national level.

I also don't know how much political will exists in Kentucky to build the extension all the way to I-75. There was opposition to the original I-66 proposal on environmental concerns.

[sparker]

No other state has an appetite for I-66, so the project appears to be dead at a national level.

I also don't know how much political will exists in Kentucky to build the extension all the way to I-75. There was opposition to the original I-66 proposal on environmental concerns.

Apparently the original selected "I-66" alignment (circa 2004 or so) from Somerset to London dipped to the south more or less along KY 192 in order to serve the recreational areas at Laurel River Lake, and that alignment passed through some karst formations, resulting in environmental concerns and opposition.  AFAIK an alternate alignment for those 30-odd miles, possibly more along KY 80, has yet to be finalized.  At this point it's more of an extension to the Cumberland/Nunn parkway than a future Interstate alignment portion of a larger corridor -- even with renewed interest in upgrading the Hal Rogers parkway to the east -- so it's likely to be treated as such rather than the national-interest corridor envisioned by some parties.  Since other plans have been made for the potential I-66 paths west of I-65 -- and so far nothing right along KY 80/US 68 has materialized, replaced by an ongoing expressway upgrade of KY 80 west as far as Mayfield, a full cross-state alignment consensus hasn't been reached.    So absent coordinated efforts to develop the whole corridor, a conceptual I-66 is at best dormant.   

[hbelkins]

The traffic volumes along KY 80 between London and Somerset don't warrant four lanes, much less a full freeway. There are passing lanes on the hills and traffic moves very well at 55 mph or greater.

[sprjus4]

The traffic volumes along KY 80 between London and Somerset don't warrant four lanes, much less a full freeway. There are passing lanes on the hills and traffic moves very well at 55 mph or greater.

KY-80 carries between 7,000 and 9,000 AADT. Widening will likely eventually come about as funding is enabled. Other routes with those volumes have seen 4 lane widening, especially on a rural long-distance corridor. If an interstate highway is desired, it will likely be designed to accommodate interchanges, overpasses, and frontage roads, either immediately or right of way for future build.

[ibthebigd]

Kind of off topic but what are the numbers for Ky 461 that's the most direct way from the north on I-75?

SM-G950U

[DJStephens]

No other state has an appetite for I-66, so the project appears to be dead at a national level.

I also don't know how much political will exists in Kentucky to build the extension all the way to I-75. There was opposition to the original I-66 proposal on environmental concerns.

   If I-66 were to be revived, a way should have been found to connect it somehow with the pieces of discontinuous limited access/pseudo expressway routes in West Virginia.  Corridor H, King Coal, Coalfields, etc to make it a more logical and useful route.   At least part of one of them.  Something that might have attracted some regional traffic.  Am guessing the two states KY/WV did not plan together to come up with something more encompassing.   
   In the west, believe the original idea was to connect it to I-24 so it could cross into Missouri and make use of an upgraded US-60.  Some overlay/paralleling of existing US 68 and state route 80.   Am guessing a route N of, skirting Bowling Green and through Hopkinsville would be very very difficult.   

[sparker]

No other state has an appetite for I-66, so the project appears to be dead at a national level.

I also don't know how much political will exists in Kentucky to build the extension all the way to I-75. There was opposition to the original I-66 proposal on environmental concerns.

   If I-66 were to be revived, a way should have been found to connect it somehow with the pieces of discontinuous limited access/pseudo expressway routes in West Virginia.  Corridor H, King Coal, Coalfields, etc to make it a more logical and useful route.   At least part of one of them.  Something that might have attracted some regional traffic.  Am guessing the two states KY/WV did not plan together to come up with something more encompassing.   
   In the west, believe the original idea was to connect it to I-24 so it could cross into Missouri and make use of an upgraded US-60.  Some overlay/paralleling of existing US 68 and state route 80.   Am guessing a route N of, skirting Bowling Green and through Hopkinsville would be very very difficult.   

The west end of the I-66 KY proposal had several options built in; the legal language did specify Bowling Green, Hopkinsville, and Benton as served towns -- but speculation as to exact alignment centered on, from south to north --
(1) Remaining on KY 80 (US 68) west of Bowling Green, upgrading the expressway as far west as Mayfield, then shooting WNW along KY 121 to a Mississippi River crossing near Wickliffe.
(2) Much the same, but shifting north via US 68 near Aurora to access Benton, then using I-69 north to I-24 and I-24 west to Paducah before heading west via US 62 and KY 286 to, again, Wickliffe and a Mississippi River crossing. 
(3) Same route on its eastern end, but shifting to a multiplex with I-24 from the KY 80 interchange to Paducah.
(4) An all-parkway route west to I-24:  north on the Natcher and west on WKY. 

Since an agreement was never reached, the conceptual project simply dissipated; except for the KY 80-based options, the various parkways have gained alternate designations that would now require extensive multiplexes or renumberings.  Then southern IL interests poked their heads into the matter, suggesting a connection between I-24 and Cape Girardeau, MO as their I-66 routing of choice (guess some parties really wanted to return the fabled number 66 to the state); all that did was to further muddy the waters, so to speak.   Continuing/reviving I-66 certainly doesn't seem to evoke much in-state interest, much less prioritization except for occasional sabre-rattling from various quarters trying to elicit political capital.  The "Future I-66 Corridor" signs on the Cumberland will likely be the only visible indication that the potential Interstate was once a viable concept. 

[Revive 755]

^ I seem to recall (and it is probably even in an old thread on this forum) that the I-66 corridor was pretty much nailed down to a northern bypass of Bowling Green (which IMHO would be nice to have without any other I-66 improvements) and then using the Natcher and Western Kentucky Parkways over to I-24.  The section that seemed up in the air was from I-24 around Paducah to I-55 in Missouri, with a routing over towards Cairo usually being favored but some off and on interest in an Illinois corridor.

[sparker]

^ I seem to recall (and it is probably even in an old thread on this forum) that the I-66 corridor was pretty much nailed down to a northern bypass of Bowling Green (which IMHO would be nice to have without any other I-66 improvements) and then using the Natcher and Western Kentucky Parkways over to I-24.  The section that seemed up in the air was from I-24 around Paducah to I-55 in Missouri, with a routing over towards Cairo usually being favored but some off and on interest in an Illinois corridor.

Yeah -- it seemed as if that section in far west KY was always in contention among those towns and regions wanting a piece of the action.  In reality, any scuttlebutt around this has been pretty silent since southern IL interests floated the Cape Girardeau crossing about 4-5 years back.  Getting I-69 extended via parkway upgrades seems to have taken the air out of the sails for other corridor activities in that neck of the woods.  Also, the designation/signing of I-165 on the Natcher has effectively ignored the previous plan to bypass Bowling Green and use the parkway system as a I-66 pathway.  And since neither WV nor MO have formally adopted any I-66-related alignments within their states, any action would be unilaterally KY's.  That's a lot of obstacles to overcome/bypass for a corridor that but for a few legislative lines hasn't gotten much attention in the last decade.  It's going to take a ton of political will to revive the corridor concept -- even as simply a connector between I-65 and I-75; anything beyond that -- at least for the foreseeable future -- would require something resembling a miracle!

[hbelkins]

Remember the debate on running I-66 down I-64, the Bluegrass, and WK parkways vs. Daniel Boone Hal Rogers and Cumberland? Can't remember the website that had all the High Priority Corridors listed, but it had links to (probably now expired) and snippets from various news stories.

[froggie]

^ Coincidentally, it was an old AARoads page that highlighted all those High Priority Corridors.

[Stephane Dumas]

^ Coincidentally, it was an old AARoads page that highlighted all those High Priority Corridors.

And back when it was known as Andy's Highway kick-off page with parts located on Geocities and Xoom.

[Alex]

Remember the debate on running I-66 down I-64, the Bluegrass, and WK parkways vs. Daniel Boone Hal Rogers and Cumberland? Can't remember the website that had all the High Priority Corridors listed, but it had links to (probably now expired) and snippets from various news stories.

It was on AARoads. That was partially why I retired it, too many dead links to keep up with, let alone ones going to URLs with expired domains.
I have the files backed up on disc and one of my external hard drives.

^ Coincidentally, it was an old AARoads page that highlighted all those High Priority Corridors.

Andy ran out of time to update those after 2005. They were all researched and compiled up by him from 1997 onward. When I finally took the pages down, they were extremely out of date.

^ Coincidentally, it was an old AARoads page that highlighted all those High Priority Corridors.

And back when it was known as Andy's Highway kick-off page with parts located on Geocities and Xoom.

The kick off page was an index of road related web pages Andy compiled that we kept updating over the years. By the time I decided to take it down, most of the pages created by road enthusiasts were dead or had not been updated in years.

If there was a Kickoff Page now, it would just be a redundant list of Wikipedia links after Steve Anderson's pages, vahighways, cahighways and the few others still actively maintained.

[civilengineeringnerd]

its been years since i been up that way, not since 03.
however, i don't think a freeway is really needed, freeways are made for much higher traffic counts. yes it would make it easier to drive along the mountainous terrain but i doubt the region to region traffic is there. even if the AADT for KY-80 is 7-9k. the only need for a freeway in that neck of the woods is if they are planning ahead for a major redevelopment project in eastern kentucky, as eastern kentucky has been kentuckys most impoverished area of the state, which then it may make more sense, assuming the project is successful. 

[sprjus4]

So what do you propose? No bypass?

Freeways are not simply based off traffic volumes. And freeways aside, the need for a bypass isn't strictly "high traffic volumes" .

[Rothman]

So what do you propose? No bypass?

Freeways are not simply based off traffic volumes. And freeways aside, the need for a bypass isn't strictly "high traffic volumes" .

Makes me wonder what other needs would justify a bypass.

[sprjus4]

So what do you propose? No bypass?

Freeways are not simply based off traffic volumes. And freeways aside, the need for a bypass isn't strictly "high traffic volumes" .

Makes me wonder what other needs would justify a bypass.

A routing that is designed to carry regional traffic (i.e. origin/destination outside the town). A bypass can be as little as a super-two with at-grade intersections. Something that routes through traffic around a population center.

[Rothman]

So what do you propose? No bypass?

Freeways are not simply based off traffic volumes. And freeways aside, the need for a bypass isn't strictly "high traffic volumes" .

Makes me wonder what other needs would justify a bypass.

A routing that is designed to carry regional traffic (i.e. origin/destination outside the town). A bypass can be as little as a super-two with at-grade intersections. Something that routes through traffic around a population center.

Why would you need to route regional traffic around a population center?

[The Ghostbuster]

Are there any plans to complete the Somerset Northern Bypass from US 27 to the junction of KY 80 and KY 461 in the near future?

[sprjus4]

So what do you propose? No bypass?

Freeways are not simply based off traffic volumes. And freeways aside, the need for a bypass isn't strictly "high traffic volumes" .

Makes me wonder what other needs would justify a bypass.

A routing that is designed to carry regional traffic (i.e. origin/destination outside the town). A bypass can be as little as a super-two with at-grade intersections. Something that routes through traffic around a population center.

Why would you need to route regional traffic around a population center?

Because it is through traffic?

Take a look at a route like US-58 across southern Virginia. Why does it bypass most of the towns / cities on the route? Should it just go through every single one?

It's an arterial highway routing with high capacity... 4 lanes with town bypasses. The principle is no different here. Unless you're trying to suggest this is a useless project and useless approach... then in that case ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[Rothman]

So what do you propose? No bypass?

Freeways are not simply based off traffic volumes. And freeways aside, the need for a bypass isn't strictly "high traffic volumes" .

Makes me wonder what other needs would justify a bypass.

A routing that is designed to carry regional traffic (i.e. origin/destination outside the town). A bypass can be as little as a super-two with at-grade intersections. Something that routes through traffic around a population center.

Why would you need to route regional traffic around a population center?

Because it is through traffic?

Take a look at a route like US-58 across southern Virginia. Why does it bypass most of the towns / cities on the route? Should it just go through every single one?

It's an arterial highway routing with high capacity... 4 lanes with town bypasses. The principle is no different here. Unless you're trying to suggest this is a useless project and useless approach... then in that case ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Why not go through every single one?