Kentucky Road Names

[ShawnP]

Can agree with most of them except John Y. Brown and the AA highway. AA highway wasn't built as it was planned (when I joined the Navy in 86......they were planning a limited access 4 lane highway from Cincy to the Ashland area). I also disliked him not getting the Kentucky Colonels into the NBA.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20120902/COLUMNISTS12/309020049/Al-Cross-The-faces-behind-Kentucky-s-road-names?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|Home|p

[hbelkins]

I never remember the AA being planned as a limited-access freeway.

Anyway, I know Mr. Cross so I saw his post in my Facebook feed. Here was my comment on it:

Naturally, you can imagine that I enjoyed this. Perhaps, among other things, this will set the record straight that Hal Rogers didn't name that road for himself. Rogers secured the congressional appropriation that paid off the toll bonds on the Daniel Boone Parkway and was present at the ceremony to bulldoze the toll booth at London. I hear from people who were present at the event that he was genuinely surprised when Patton unveiled the new Hal Rogers Parkway sign, and he had no idea that the road was going to be renamed.

The quote from Patton about naming culverts was interesting. For the last three years my boss was an engineer from the Pikeville/Prestonsburg area, who made the exact same comment. That bridge naming phenomenon seems to be more prevalent in District 12 (Lawrence, Martin, Johnson, Floyd, PIke, Knott and Letcher, with the district office in Pikeville) than anywhere else.

I hate the new, nearly identical parkway signs. I never heard the rationale behind changing the signs, but I suspect it was to hype the "Unbridled Spirit" logo. It's one of the things done during the Fletcher administration with which I strongly disagreed.

[jnewkirk77]

Someone at District 2 had a little fun with one Audubon Parkway sign recently.  The first reassurance marker eastbound from Henderson has the classic oversized "A" in "Audubon," but on the Unbridled Spirit blank, not the old style.  The condition of the sign indicates that it's fairly new, although I didn't get out to take a closer look or anything like that.

There's another unusual Audubon Parkway marker in Owensboro; it's at the former U.S. 60 Byp. & Parrish Avenue (KY 81).  I'll have to grab a pic of it this week on my rounds ... you'll get a kick out of it, H.B.  That's all I'm gonna say for now.

[ShawnP]

When I was at Western Kentucky in 85-86 remember reading the Courier-Journal and they put it out as the "last" link in the Kentucky Parkways system.

[hbelkins]

There's another unusual Audubon Parkway marker in Owensboro; it's at the former U.S. 60 Byp. & Parrish Avenue (KY 81).  I'll have to grab a pic of it this week on my rounds ... you'll get a kick out of it, H.B.  That's all I'm gonna say for now.

Still waiting... 

[Alps]

There's another unusual Audubon Parkway marker in Owensboro; it's at the former U.S. 60 Byp. & Parrish Avenue (KY 81).  I'll have to grab a pic of it this week on my rounds ... you'll get a kick out of it, H.B.  That's all I'm gonna say for now.

Still waiting... 

Somewhere in my travels in KY last time, I found one old green style shield. For the life of me I don't remember where.

[agentsteel53]

Somewhere in my travels in KY last time, I found one old green style shield. For the life of me I don't remember where.

in November 2010, I found a Mountain Parkway circular cutout, with half-peeled Bert Combs arced addition, on a gantry with 11 and 52 shields as well.  wherever that is, that's where it is.

[hbelkins]

Somewhere in my travels in KY last time, I found one old green style shield. For the life of me I don't remember where.

in November 2010, I found a Mountain Parkway circular cutout, with half-peeled Bert Combs arced addition, on a gantry with 11 and 52 shields as well.  wherever that is, that's where it is.

That's the town where I live! And you didn't even stop to say hello!



FWIW, I know of three other old Mountain Parkway signs like that. Two are in downtown Salyersville and one's in downtown Jackson.

[Alps]

Considering I came in on KY 40, Salyersville must be where I saw mine.

[agentsteel53]

that is indeed the very same gantry.

we were there at about 6am, doing a monster 5 day 24-hour-a-day county clinching run.  (damn, Kentucky has a lot of counties!)

[hbelkins]

that is indeed the very same gantry.

we were there at about 6am, doing a monster 5 day 24-hour-a-day county clinching run.  (damn, Kentucky has a lot of counties!)

Depending on the day of the week, I was probably in the shower if it was a workday for me.

Yep, 120 counties. I know Texas and Georgia have more. I think we're third on the list but I'm not positive.

[Scott5114]

I always wonder how that number of counties is justified. Why not merge a few and save some money? Oklahoma has 77, which seems a bit high, but I can't think of any offhand that would make sense to merge, although having three in the panhandle seems excessive.

[hbelkins]

I always wonder how that number of counties is justified. Why not merge a few and save some money? Oklahoma has 77, which seems a bit high, but I can't think of any offhand that would make sense to merge, although having three in the panhandle seems excessive.

The old story was that you should be able to get to the county seat and back home on horseback in a day. I don't know if that's true or not.

I'd guess that some counties were split off from their parents because of political differences between certain areas of the county.

I agree that some of Kentucky's counties are too small, but WV has 55 counties and I think a lot of them are too big. Even with paved highways and automobiles, I think a trip to the county seat can be quite long in a lot of them. And the terrain doesn't help in many instances.

[kphoger]

I always wonder how that number of counties is justified. Why not merge a few and save some money? Oklahoma has 77, which seems a bit high, but I can't think of any offhand that would make sense to merge, although having three in the panhandle seems excessive.

What is "right"?  Most people probably think their own state does it "right".  There's great variation worldwide, country-by-country, and even within other nations.

The only opinion I really have on the matter is that declining population should prompt county consolidation.  And that's only a weak opinion.  You could sway me to the other side by, for example, offering me a bacon cheeseburger.