For roughly three decades, Northern Kentucky leaders have envisioned a second major east-west route across the region that would allow drivers to travel between Campbell, Kenton and Boone counties without heading to Interstate 275.
After years of planning, funding requests and gradual construction, officials say one of the most important missing pieces of KY 536 is beginning to move forward in Campbell County.
The larger vision is to create a continuous, improved KY 536 corridor stretching from the AA Highway in Campbell County west through Kenton County and ultimately to Interstate 71/75 in Boone County. Portions of that route already exist or have been improved, but a roughly four-mile stretch between U.S. 27 and the AA Highway in Campbell County has never been built.
“This is a 30-year-old thing, and the only major east-west corridor in Northern Kentucky right now is I-275,” Campbell County Judge/Executive Steve Pendery said.
Kentucky lawmakers allocated $14.8 million this year toward right-of-way acquisition for the first phase of the Campbell County extension, from U.S. 27 to Persimmon Grove Road. A second phase would continue from Persimmon Grove Road east to the AA Highway, according to Representative Mike Clines, a Republican from Alexandria.
The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet also recently held public meetings for feedback as work on the corridor moves forward.
For Pendery and other regional leaders who have advocated for the project for decades, the Campbell County connection represents more than a new road. They argue it could change how people move throughout Northern Kentucky, relieve pressure on some of the region’s busiest roads and give workers in rural counties better access to the region’s largest employment areas.
“It’s the most important new infrastructure project, not only in Northern Kentucky but in this entire OKI region,” said Mark Policinski, CEO of the Ohio-Kentucky-Indiana Regional Council of Governments, also known as OKI.
A 30-year effort
When planning for KY 536 began decades ago, Pendery said the existing road was nowhere close to functioning as a regional east-west corridor.
The route contained sharp turns, curves, hills and other limitations through Kenton County, while the connection east of U.S. 27 in Campbell County simply didn’t exist. On the western end, KY 536 connected with I-71/75 at what Pendery described as a dysfunctional interchange.
Over time, pieces of that puzzle have been addressed.
Pendery said the three Northern Kentucky county judges/executive traveled to Washington, D.C., and met personally with the U.S. transportation secretary three times in an effort to secure federal funding. Two of those trips resulted in tens of millions of dollars, he said, including funding that helped improve the Boone County interchange and a section of the corridor in Kenton County.
Still, completing the entire corridor has proved expensive.
Pendery estimated completing the remaining improvements could cost hundreds of millions of dollars, particularly if officials ultimately determine a new crossing of the Licking River is needed. Whether that bridge is necessary still needs further study, he said.
OKI’s involvement also stretches back years. Policinski said the regional planning agency conducted a scoping study of KY 536 in 2015, including expert analysis and community participation.
To Policinski, the need for the road becomes clearer by looking at how Northern Kentucky has changed since I-275 was planned roughly six decades ago.
“The reason it’s so close to the river is because it was handling most of the population that close to the river,” Policinski said. “Sixty years later, obviously Northern Kentucky has gone through an economic boom.”
As development has moved farther south, he said, the region’s transportation network hasn’t fully followed it.
“536 is the east-west connection that Northern Kentucky needs,” Policinski said.
President and CEO of BE NKY Growth Partnership Lee Crume said a look at a map highlights the problem. He said many of Northern Kentucky’s major routes including KY 9, U.S. 27, KY 17 and I-71/75 primarily move traffic north and south.
“When you step below [I-275], we’re really missing that infrastructure that moves our community from east to west,” Crume said. “I think this idea of getting 536 built out all the way across Campbell County is just a no-brainer.”
What it could mean for Campbell County
For Campbell County residents, the most immediate impact could be fewer trips north just to travel west.
Someone living in southern Campbell County who wants to travel toward Boone County currently may have to head north on U.S. 27, reach I-275 and then travel west. A completed KY 536 would create another option farther south.
The effect could also be felt on U.S. 27.
Pendery pointed to growing truck traffic coming from the AA Highway as one contributor to congestion. Trucks trying to reach the interstate can travel north toward I-275 or find other routes across Campbell County toward U.S. 27 and KY 536.
Completing the missing link, he said, could give some of that traffic a more direct route west and reduce the number of trucks traveling through Alexandria.
Clines, who grew up in southern Campbell County and now represents Alexandria and surrounding areas in the Kentucky House of Representatives, describes the project as an “Alexandria bypass.”
He pointed specifically to traffic generated by Campbell County High School and Campbell County Middle School. A completed connection could allow some drivers who currently travel through Alexandria to instead move around the city.
“That Alexandria bypass will be instrumental on many levels for the quality of life of those living in Campbell County, specifically southern Campbell County,” Clines said.
The benefits wouldn’t necessarily stop at Alexandria.
Representative Matt Lehman, a Democrat from Newport, represents northern Campbell County, where the new roadway would not be built, but he said congestion generated farther south eventually feeds into U.S. 27, I-275 and I-471.
“There has to be some relief in the northern parts of the county,” Lehman said.
Connecting workers with jobs
While easing traffic may be the most visible benefit for drivers, Pendery said he believes the project’s largest economic payoff could come from putting more workers within a reasonable commute of Northern Kentucky jobs.
Major employment centers, including Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport, more commonly known as CVG, and the industrial and logistics development surrounding it, are concentrated farther west.
A faster east-west route could put those jobs within easier reach of residents of southern Campbell County and neighboring Pendleton, Bracken and other counties.
“The big payoff of this road, so far as our economy goes, is probably not going to be the benefit to local traffic,” Pendery said. “It’s going to be facilitating travel such that workers can get back and forth to jobs.”
Policinski sees that connection as central to the project’s importance regionally.
“The world is coming to NKY’s doorstep,” Policinski said. “There’s going to be a tremendous need for jobs and what does every business tell you? The biggest problem is ‘How do I get people?’ ‘How do I keep people?’ Well, you can’t keep people if you’re forcing them to be in a car for two hours each way.”
Transportation infrastructure can also influence where companies choose to locate.
Crume said transportation comes up “every single time” in site-selection discussions, particularly for industrial companies that need easy access to interstates and don’t want trucks navigating winding two-lane roads through small communities.
“Every mile you drive from the interstate is a mile you have to drive back,” Crume said. “That adds cost.”
President and CEO of the Northern Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, Brent Cooper, said the benefits aren’t limited to large manufacturers, logistics companies or truckers. Electricians, plumbers, HVAC contractors, IT companies and other service businesses also depend on the ability to move efficiently around the region.
“There’s a lot of service businesses and small businesses in our region that will benefit tremendously from this, and I think that kind of gets lost in the conversation sometimes,” Cooper said.
Campbell County’s next step
Before those potential benefits will be seen, however, the missing Campbell County road has to be built.
Clines said KY 536 has been one of his priorities since he was elected in 2023. Lawmakers initially secured $5 million for the project in the 2024 budget cycle. This year, Clines said the House initially sought $38 million for right-of-way acquisition for both Campbell County phases before the final allocation was reduced to $14.8 million for the first phase.
“You can’t get finished unless you get started,” Clines said. “What works in our favor is that the Commonwealth has decided to get started, which is the purchase of the property.”
Lehman said Kentucky’s road-funding process makes continued advocacy important.
The state develops a six-year road plan, but the General Assembly actually appropriates funding two years at a time. That means a project can appear in the longer-term road plan without necessarily having the money required to move ahead.
“The truth is, any road plan or road planning in this state is, you need your legislators to stay on top of it,” Lehman said. “We can make all sorts of plans. There can be all sorts of things in the plan, but until that money is allocated, it doesn’t happen.”
Lehman expects KY 536 to remain a priority when lawmakers return to the transportation budget in 2028.
OKI could potentially become another source of funding as the project progresses.
Policinski said KYTC already has more than $100 million worth of KY 536-related projects included in OKI’s transportation plan. Separately, OKI distributes roughly $50 million to $80 million annually through its own competitive funding process.
LINK nky reached out to KYTC on multiple occasions for comment but did not hear back.
Campbell County or a city could submit an application seeking OKI funding for future KY 536 work. Policinski said OKI has not received such an application for the Campbell County extension and stressed that he could not guarantee funding for a competitive application.
But, he added, “we would be happy and anxious to receive an application involving the expansion and improvement of 536.”
Growth comes with impacts
Building a new road through Campbell County will also affect people who already live along its proposed path.
Pendery said that was a source of opposition when the project was initially discussed decades ago. Unlike sections where an existing road could be widened or reconstructed, the Campbell County extension requires building a road where one doesn’t currently exist.
Clines said he wants those property owners considered as the project advances.
“Where there is growth, there’s often challenges, discomfort and uncertainty,” he said. “And I want them to know that we recognize that in this situation.”
Crume similarly acknowledged that completing the corridor will require land acquisition and will affect individual property owners, even as he believes the broader transportation benefits outweigh the drawbacks.
“Changes can be really scary for a lot of people,” Crume said. “I don’t want to be insensitive to that. I do just think the net positives of having good, safe, efficient access going east-west in this community can outweigh any potential negatives that are out there.”
For Pendery, those competing considerations are part of a project Northern Kentucky has now spent decades debating, studying, redesigning and funding piece by piece.
When the idea emerged roughly 30 years ago, he said, officials knew its size and price meant it wouldn’t happen quickly.
What has changed, in his view, is the urgency.
“As the years have gone by, it becomes more and more clear that we not only need this, we pretty much got to have it,” Pendery said. “It’s things like safety, jobs. You could say convenience. Those are important things.”
Policinski is similarly emphatic about the significance of finishing the eastern end of the corridor.
“If you look at all of it, it (Campbell County piece) may be the most important thing on 536,” Policinski said. “And 536 is the most important infrastructure project in this region, so the world is waiting for Campbell County to move.”
