From its opening as a toll road over sixty years ago, the promise of the Mountain Parkway has been to provide eastern Kentucky with a high-speed corridor connecting it to the rest of the state. Now, Governor Andy Beshear says it’s making good on that promise, thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.
"Every part of the four-laning of the Mountain Parkway is either completed, under construction, or under contract, thanks to this grant and the $150 million that it unlocked in our state budget," said Beshear. "By four-laning it, we're going to open up parts of Appalachia to more manufacturing, more economic development that, in the past, said without a four-lane road could not locate there."
Kentucky received $7.5 billion dollars from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. In addition to the expansion of the Mountain Parkway, that money has gone to bolster disaster resilience, aid areas impacted by severe weather events, and improve daily life through better transportation - like the funding of the $1.6 billion Brent Spence Bridge Corridor Project, connecting Covington and Cincinnati.
"This is one of the most important bridges for commerce in America, but it simply has too much traffic," said Beshear. "This is going to allow us to build a companion bridge - and everything that goes along with it - and to do it without tolls, without the impact on families on each side of the river."
Today, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg announced another batch of grants totaling over $3.4 billion to be distributed to local projects across the United States.