LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A proposal to widen Interstate 64 between Mellwood Avenue and the Watterson Expressway isn’t “feasible at this time,” in part due to public opposition and cost, a Kentucky Transportation Cabinet study found.
The report released last week rated the widening option as a low priority for improving the I-64 corridor that runs near Seneca and Cherokee parks and Bowman Field. It concluded that more analysis is needed on any potential congestion benefits.
Instead, planners identified more pressing needs that include adding an electronic sign warning drivers heading west if there are backups on the exit ramp to Grinstead Drive; extending several merging and slowdown lanes; and widening the offramp to Grinstead, allowing an extra left turn lane.
Each of those three strategies is considered a high priority that should be pursued more quickly, although the study noted that there is no funding set aside to make those improvements happen. Their overall estimated cost is $7.4 million.
The stretch of I-64 included in the planning study.
The Olmsted Parks Conservancy opposed any widening near the parks, fearing that construction on new lanes could encroach on park property and lead to fewer trees that help address Louisville's urban heat island effect.
Even with the widening envisioned on the inside of the existing I-64, conservancy president and CEO Layla George said any new road building could have impacted nearby parkland.
"Anytime you take away green space that's absorbing heat and absorbing water and replace it with asphalt, you're going to have worsening conditions--and Beargrass Creek follows right alongside the expressway there," she said.
After the conservancy took a public stance against expanding I-64 last year, it urged people to submit comments to the Transportation Cabinet.
"We were thrilled to see that they really took the public input process seriously and recognized that there was broad opposition to a widening of I-64," George said.
The Kentucky General Assembly funded the $293,144 study of the area east of Story Avenue in Butchertown in 2018. There were two meetings of local officials and “stakeholders,” as well as virtual public meetings, during late 2020 and early 2021.
More than 750 people submitted feedback on the proposals, with the “public strongly opposed” to all of the major widening strategies, the report says. In all, 54 percent who responded said they did not support any changes to the corridor.
The $25.4 million widening proposal looked at adding an extra lane on the inside of the expressway between Mellwood and Grinstead, and between Cannons Lane and the Watterson. It called for a concrete barrier separating the new lanes.
The tunnels were not included in the scenario that was studied. That was a reversal from initial ideas presented to the public that also suggested that a third tunnel could be possible.
The report found that an advance warning system altering drivers to backups on the I-64 West exit ramp to Grinstead Drive was favored by 61 percent of those who participated in online feedback. That ramp, located not far from the westbound tunnel's exit, can back up quickly and force cars to queue on the interstate.
Data in the report found that from 2016 to 2019 more than half of the crashes between the tunnels and that exit ramp were rear-end collisions.
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