Legislators joined Kenton County’s mayor’s group Saturday, where local leaders discussed the county’s needs for road improvements, especially along state-controlled roads that cities don’t have jurisdiction over.
Mayors expressed concerns to Rep. Steve Doan (R-Erlanger) and Sen. Shelley Funke Frommeyer (R-Alexandria) that changes were being decided upon and implemented at the state level without local leaders input or knowledge.
“One of the concerns I’ve had,” aid Crestview Hills Mayor Paul Meier, “is that the state has these plans out to do some things, but we don’t find out about them until it’s too late to stop them or too late to make any adjustments.”
Fort Wright Mayor David Hatter shared Meier’s concerns.
“At one point, long before you [Doan] were involved in this job, the state just came in to block off Park Road in Fort Wright, resurfaced the thing, and it looked like something out of the back woods in West Virginia,” Hatter said. “There was no advance warning. They just did it.”
Walton Mayor Gabe Brown asked Doan if there was any discussion at the state level of breaking up District 6 of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, which currently spans 11 counties.
“It seems like District 6 has, you know, a lot of irons in the fire, so to speak,” Brown said.
Doan said that he was not aware of any plans to break up the district.
He continued to say that the district road plans would appear in a budget bill in January, and that representatives had received preliminary documents related to road plans in their districts. The documents had come following some early committee meetings, and they had not yet been released to the public, although representatives were allowed to share them with city officials.
“We went through some of those major priorities that either I’ve heard from my mayors or my city council members,” Doan said, “or just from our general people on the streets and things that I’ve recognized in my district.”
Doan added that representatives had to balance the need for road safety with the desire for economic development and that he had been communicating with local officials to get input before the next round of meetings in Frankfort. He encouraged the city leaders to contact their representatives with concerns.
Taylor Mill Mayor Daniel Bell asked for updated data on road improvement funding allocations.
“What kind of per capita spend are we getting in Kenton County on road improvements?” Bell asked.
He also expressed a desire for continued improvements along KY 536, which he said would serve as an alternative to I-275 as an east-west corridor through the county.
“I think that needs to be done yesterday,” Bell said.
Frommeyer said that they had been quite noisy about that topic.
“And we’re making some progress,” she said. “The right of way, acquisition is somewhere around $26 million.”
Independence Mayor Chris Reinersman affirmed Bell’s comments about east-west access.
“We have to keep pushing 536 all the way to Campbell County,” Reinersman said. “It’s so valuable for that cross-county access.”
Brown asked about a southern connection to I-471 that was discussed during Gov. Matt Bevin’s tenure, but seemed to have evaporated afterward. Bevin left office in 2019.
Frommeyer said there had been some discussion about it at the state level, but the project was contingent on commitments from Ohio.
There was also discussion about emergency services access to I-75 during construction on the Brent Spence Bridge companion bridge project.
Frommeyer said one of the ongoing challenges of building new roads in the region is the hilly and mountainous terrain, which carried with it safety risks and high costs.
Bell said that this justification for slow improvements had the potential to become a stalling tactic.
“I want to caution our representatives,” Bell said. “I was in Somerset recently, and they’re building a $750 million highway through tough topography.”
The point, Bell said, is that leaders need to buckle down and say, no, this is where people live.
“And this is what we need in order for us to move about our business and bring more business into the state,” Bell said. “Topography should no longer be an excuse for that.”