The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet will hold a meeting next week to share what it has learned after several months of evaluating options for extending the Mountain Parkway between Salyersville and Prestonsburg.
Officials have refined two alternatives to create a four-lane road between Salyersville and Prestonsburg, and they will present additional details to the public during a Nov. 19 meeting at Prestonsburg Elementary School, 140 South Clark Road. The meeting will run from 4:30 to 7 p.m.
The alternatives would either widen the parkway along the existing corridor (KY 114) or build a new road along a cross-country corridor to the north of KY 114.
Hundreds of residents attended a meeting in Prestonsburg in April to learn details about the two preliminary options and provide feedback. After the meeting, the Mountain Parkway Expansion team conducted further study of the connectivity between Salyersville and Prestonsburg. KYTC will be presenting two refined alignments to the public for further comment on November 19th.
“Public feedback is one of many things we consider when we design Kentucky’s roads,” said Marshall Carrier, a KYTC engineer who is project manager for the Mountain Parkway Expansion. “We want to make sure that we choose a route that will serve this region well – not just tomorrow but for future generations.”
At next week’s meeting, the public will see a video, along with updated maps and exhibits. KYTC representatives and members of the project team will be available for questions. Residents will again have the opportunity complete a questionnaire and provide feedback.
The Mountain Parkway Expansion is a 46-mile transportation improvement project that will create a wider, safer connection between Eastern Kentucky and the rest of the Commonwealth. It is a key transportation project designed to close the only gap in a 400-mile, four-lane, high-speed corridor for commerce and mobility across Kentucky from Pikeville to Paducah.
The project will widen 30 miles of the existing parkway from two lanes to four lanes, and will extend the parkway another 16 miles by widening KY 114 between Salyersville and Prestonsburg.
The Mountain Parkway Expansion is a key project of the Shaping Our Appalachian Region (SOAR) initiative.
Launched by Gov. Beshear and Congressman Hal Rogers in 2013, SOAR is designed to help the region develop and put into action new locally-oriented strategies to attack persistent challenges related to job training, health, education and economic development.
(story provided by Kentucky Transportation Cabinet)
