The Illinois Department of Transportation has discontinued the Interstate 66 Corridor Study aimed at connecting Paducah to East Cape Girardeau, Ill.
An IDOT statement claims the study was scrapped because of a lack of participation from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet.
“If you read the IDOT news release very carefully, you will see that it says IDOT is going to go ahead and do the study on its own," said KYTC spokesman Keith Todd. "We’re mainly focused right now on Interstate 69 and getting it completed through Kentucky. That’s not to say we can’t multitask, but I-69 is our focus.”
The IDOT release says a new study will begin within a year. Todd said that study will be confined to the portion of I-66 that will be within Illinois.
Paducah attorney Dan Key was a member of the I-66 Foundation Board of Directors and says Kentucky has other infrastructure priorities and doesn’t have money for the I-66 project right now. He says the board stopped meeting a year ago because of dwindling funds.
The project area was set to cover a 2,500 square mile area in Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri, according to IDOT.
