I-75 in Kentucky

[Grimley1968]

As a Kentuckian, I know how frustrating the bottleneck on I-75 in the southern third of the state has been for years, especially for those from the north just trying to get south to WDW. It's been a headache for us heading either direction, too. The reason for that bottleneck is that 3 lanes each way reduce to 2 lanes through much of this section. This has also caused some wrecks in that area.

I was watching local news last night, and the best news I saw was that they are finally going to widen much of this problematic section to 3 lanes, beginning in March, working in phases from north to south, starting at mile marker 69. Hopefully this makes the trip south and then back home a little better for those of you who have to drive I-75.

 

[rob0519]

The question is, will the construction take the road down to one lane in order to build that 3rd lane? It would take a bad situation and make it worse for a long time if it does.

 

[Grimley1968]

The question is, will the construction take the road down to one lane in order to build that 3rd lane? It would take a bad situation and make it worse for a long time if it does.

I'm not an engineer, so I could be wrong: I think it may be possible to limit the one-laning to very small amounts of time or not at all. The entire length of road in question seems to be already wide enough with little to no blasting. A few years ago, the roadway was widened (a bunch of blasting was done then), but lanes were not added then in this section (an opportunity missed). Instead they chose to put in cable barriers and a large grass median between northbound and southbound lanes. At the southern and northern ends of this section where it transitions to 3 lanes, the roadway itself does not widen. The median and cable barrier goes away and is replaced by left shoulders and concrete barriers. It may be that almost of the construction may occur in the median.