News and Music Discovery
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

KY Transportation Officials Lay Out Six Year, $6B Road Plan

Evgenii Iaroshevskii, 123rf Stock Photo

Officials with the state transportation cabinet are laying out their six year, six billion dollar road plan to Kentucky legislators. The plan focuses on safety and highway congestion issues. Members of the House Budget Review Subcommittee heard a report Tuesday.

Louisville Representative Dennis Keene asked about long term financial planning. “There’s got to be some way of increasing revenues. Every good business runs on a model. Sometimes you have to raise your prices. You just can’t keep doing what you are doing and expecting something that’s not there," Keene says.

Keene worries about growth in electric vehicles cutting into gas tax revenues. Transportation Secretary Mike Hancock says every state faces that challenge, “The key with us is investing wisely. Making sure that the investments we do make are the most important ones to make and that will carry us as far as it will.”

Appearing before the House Budget Review Subcommittee, Transportation Secretary Mike Hancock said this winter’s ice and snow impact on interstate 75 in Rockcastle County signifies the need to expand to six lanes along a stretch of that highway. “That is an area that has its own issues with steep upgrades and so forth. So, the reconstruction of that section of I-75 is something that we see as an important investment," Hancock says.

Hancock says some $630 million is being proposed over the next two years to make improvements to substandard bridges across the state. With lower gas prices in play, state transportation officials project a $112 million shortfall in the road fund.

Subcommittee Chair Representative Leslie Combs asked Transportation Cabinet Secretary Mike Hancock if there are four or five priority projects. “We don’t have an official list. We’re simply waiting to see how this process works out and then we’ll figure out how to go from there,” said Hancock. “I think we can prioritize it. We’ll take that job,” responded Combs.

Passage of the transportation budget will likely come near the end of the current session of the Kentucky General Assembly along with consideration of the executive budget for the rest of state government.

Stu Johnson is a reporter/producer at WEKU in Lexington, Kentucky.
Related Content