Push continues to improve Ky. 90

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December 16, 2009

By GINA KINSLOW The Glasgow Daily Times Wed Dec 16, 2009, 12:27 PM CST

Work to improve Ky. 90 east of Glasgow may resume by the first of the year.

Whether that will happen will depend on the availability of funding, according to officials.

The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet was in the process of acquiring rights of way along the section of the highway from the Louie B. Nunn Parkway to a half mile east of Lick Branch Road earlier this year, but the work was suspended due to a lack of money in the state’s highway construction budget.

Judge-Executive Davie Greer said she was not happy with the news.

“I think it’s awful,” she said. “I think we need to have it done. I think it’s a very dangerous road. If there was anything I could do, I would do it.”

Keirsten Jaggers, public information officer for the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Bowling Green office, said the state highway department’s central office had been provided with the additional paperwork necessary to obtain funds to continue the project.

“We hope to see some movement by the first of the year,” she said.

The project could have continued with stimulus monies, but it didn’t qualify. The road project that did was the Glasgow Veterans Outer Loop.

“In recent years, federal funds have provided a more stable and consistent method of getting highway projects to construction. Even so, without the federal stimulus of early 2009, one section of the Glasgow Outer Loop would not have gone to construction this year,” Jaggers said.

Kentucky was scheduled to receive $421.1 million of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money, of which $12.6 million is dedicated to the Transportation Enhancement Program.

A portion of the stimulus money was set to be used for the Ky. 90 project, but it did not qualify as being a “shovel-ready project” and state bond funds were allocated for the project instead.

Rep. Johnny Bell (D-Glasgow) met with state highway officials a few months ago to discuss why the project isn’t moving forward at a quicker pace.

“What the issue is, there are so many rights of way to buy that we’re trying to make sure we are getting compensated fairly. That’s putting a strain on monies we’re projecting to put in there and that’s what’s slowing us down,” Bell said. “We did commit about a month-a-half ago with a meeting to move the money from Stage 2 back into Stage 1 and 2 and I was told that would be enough to get all of the rights of way so that we could get something done concerning that road.”

He added he wants his constituents to know that the project is a high priority because of the number of fatalities that have occurred along the highway.

“I agree with most of the people in this community that we’ve not been treated fair concerning that road,” he said. “For example, up in Burkesville on this far end of this thing they have spent a tremendous amount of money moving a mountain, straightening out some curves up there that I think was frivolous when compared to the death rate and the danger we have with 90 east. But of course, I don’t have much input in what goes in in Burkesville. Once we figured out that federal stimulus money couldn’t be used for 90 east, I didn’t want to lose that money at all and I also felt that the bypass was very important and that was the reason why it was then transferred to those two sections, because it is better spent here than somewhere else.”

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