Following considerable discussions with Kentucky Transportation Cabinet’s Mike Oliver, fiscal court and its magistrates voted Monday night to unanimously approve Trigg County’s recommended 2024-25 District I rural secondary road plan.
According to Oliver, this year’s map comes with six markers for improvements and maintenance:
— The maintenance of nearly 138 rural miles, at $3,600 per mile, will cost almost $494,000.
— The county flex funds, at 25% of the tentative $1.5 million allocation, comes to $381,000.
— The re-paving of Wallonia Road, from East Stewart to Barefield, is 2.85 miles, and will cost $375,000.
— The re-paving of Rockcastle Road, from US 68X to Beach Bend, is 1.81 miles, and will cost $186,000.
— The re-paving of Hardy Road, from HC Futrell to McAtee, is 1.87 miles, and will cost $228,000.
Add in the roughly $30,000 for some county-wide asphalt patching, with more than $168,000 in carry over from the 2023-24 undistributed reserves, and in all it totals more than $1.6 million of work and value.
Oliver also wanted to clear up some common misconceptions about rural secondary dollars.
Judge-Executive Stan Humphries clarified that Trigg County received nearly double rural secondary compensation for the 2023-24 schematic, and Oliver further noted that last year’s estimate of $80 per ton of asphalt wound up being more than 10% short of the $90-to-$92 it wound up being. And he stuck around later in the meeting to review magistrates, Humphries and County Attorney Randy Braboy opening bids for gasoline, diesel, rock, bituminous surfacing and chip & seal — only to hear the court accept a price from lone asphalt bidder, Rogers Group, locking in a $99.65 per ton.
This road plan, Humphries added, is also about a mile shorter than the one just completed.
In the lookahead, Oliver did say that officials in Frankfort have released roughly $200,000 in this budget cycle for some slab replacements along I-24, and that four months from now, around August, leading and bids will start to be sought for the dangerous KY 124/KY 139 intersection — right there in front of the old Wilson’s Grocery and freshly-finished Dollar General Store.
Furthermore, Humphries also confirmed that the Kentucky General Assembly, as well as a locally-constructed federal delegation, has helped secure a locked-in $750,000 needed for a summer-scheduled I-24 widening study. Conversations between west Kentucky and Tennessee officials, Humphries added, have been going well — as the ensnaring interstate continues its throttle and choke at the state line.