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The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC), was present at George Rogers Clark High School on Thursday night, along with numerous community leaders and citizens, to discuss a project involving the eastern bypass, better known as Veterans Memorial Parkway.

When complete, the project would connect Boonesboro Road and Veterans Memorial Parkway.

“Over the years, we’ve gone through with looking at multiple alternatives in the preliminary stage. We’ve [got] public input. They had a committee of locals that helped steer the project as far as the design elements,” said Joshua Samples, KYTC District 7 design section supervisor. “This is where we’ve gotten to through that and we’re trying to move through this environmental process.”

According to a news release from KYTC, the project’s objective would be to simplify connectivity between the main roads from the center of Winchester into the southern section of Clark County.

In so doing, a rural design would be used for most of the project.

Two 12-foot lanes, a grass median and paved outside shoulders would be included.

However, the project would also include urban design.

Specifically, it would be utilized for a new T-intersection along Boonesboro Road, with a narrow overall width for curbs and gutters being applied.

Throughout the development, designs have included two sets of twin bridges over railroad crossings, a single-span bridge, and box culverts and box culvert extensions.

Box culverts, whose primary purpose is to channel water past an obstacle or subterranean waterway, are often surrounded by soil and might be made from pipe, reinforced concrete, or other materials with strong structural integrity.

“We knew that there would be drainage structures that had to be of such a size that the bridge would be the most efficient, economically feasible structure,” said Stuart McIntosh, the lead engineer at the Lexington office of JMT Inc., who provided the design work for the project, “That’s definitely been something we were planning on from the beginning.”

The project also included an environmental assessment that evaluates the project’s potential impact on the human, natural and physical environment.

As such, alternatives or mitigation strategies have been recommended.

“This is a step between our environmental assessment and our finding of no significant impact that we hope to get,” said Hunter Pace, the environmental coordinator for KYTC. “We just have a list of our floodplain impacts. We’re looking at archaeologies, air qualities, noise impacts, water quality, [and] social justice, which is looking at [how] we are adversely affecting a low-income population more than higher-income populations.”

Phil Logsdon, Environmental Specialist for Lochner – an engineering consultant – acknowledged that much development had been seen since the idea for the project was first brought up in the 2010s.

“All that [environmental assessment] work was done originally in the 2010s and then, more recently, when a decision was made to update all that so we could qualify for federal funding,” Logsdon said. “For the size of the project, the impacts are not anything extravagant. It’s the kind of things we deal with on most projects.”

Also present at the event was Cecil Smith, supervisor with Right of Way.

The organization provides professional acquisition services, safety improvements to highway railroad crossings, and fair and equitable treatment to citizens – including any small percentage of families, businesses, and utilities that might face relocation.

“Everything we follow in the state of Kentucky is federal guidelines, and there’s a large breadth of things we can do in relocation,” Smith said. “Every situation is completely different. It could be something as small as moving an old car [or] could be as large as moving a three-story house and actually physically moving it…we’ve got a lot of things we can do.”

For Winchester residents, including Magistrate Ernest Pasley, the development represents an opportunity for growth.

“It would help any kind of truck traffic. As it is now, truck traffic is not permitted downtown,” Pasley said. “Any of the [George Rogers Clark High School] students on the eastern side of the county would be able to turn on the bypass and come right out at school. That would alleviate some of that bottleneck that we have.”