Coalition for the Advancement of Regional Transportation

Sounds like a plan: Widen I-64?

Jul 27, 2001

How do you like this plan: widen I-64 from Spaghetti Junction to the Watterson and from the Gene Snyder to Shelbyville? This includes widening the tunnnels through Cherokee Park. Horizon 2020, the federally mandated regional transportation plan, seeks to do just that. The plan is sponsored by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KTC). When neighborhoods, associations and elected officials learned of the plan in February, they drafted resolutions asking that these projects be replaced with alternative transportation systems. To date, these pleas have fallen on deaf ears.
In the past few weeks, the KTC has defended its plan in public and simultaneously declared (on a sign at the Cherokee Art Fair) "We have no plans to widen I-64 through this area." Meanwhile, the KTC has said it expects the widening of I-64 inside the Watterson "to be considered for funding for future Six-Year Highway Plans."
What about other Louisville area interstates? KTC's Six-Year Plan includes plans to widen I-71 to 6 lanes. Yet, KTC's study conducted by consultants, & approved by KTC, refers to the I-71 widening as "staging for an 8 lane widening". Widening continues on I-65. Plans are to widen I-264 & I-265. Horizon 2020 includes plans are to add an 6 lane bridge downtown. What will happen when this traffic tries to merge onto the streets of Louisivlle? What will we need to do to Louisville to make our local streets accomodate all the traffic introduced by these new interstate lanes?