In May 1-7 issue
By Greg Wells
Times Journal Managing Editor



ABOVE: Crews maneuvered two huge spans of a new bridge into place at the site of a new bridge under construction on the rebuild of French Valley Road (Ky. 3280).

RUSSELL SPRINGS - Roadwork is progressing in Russell County, as the Commonwealth's transportation department is moving ahead with two high-profile projects.

The resurfacing of the Cumberland Parkway from the Russell Springs exit eastward to near the Pulaski County line is fully underway.

Milling (removal of the highway surface) in the right lane of the west-bound Cumberland Parkway is completed. Paving was nearly finished in that single lane this week.

Milling was underway on the right lane of the east-bound lanes as well.

Officials at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet said the parkway project will cost just over $6.7 million.

Both east- and west-bound Parkway travel is reduced to single lanes, with lower speed limits and corresponding higher fines for speeding in a work area, from the Russell Springs exit to within a few miles of the Pulaski County line.

The Parkway west of the Russell Springs exit was resurfaced last summer.

That work is expected to be completed by August this year.

There wasn't a completion date available for the re-alignment of French Valley Road this week. Earth-moving began last year on that project.
The $7.48 million for this project will straighten the road, which passes by the county's newest industrial park.

An appropriation was announced at the last school board meeting that would be used to align the main entrance to the middle and high schools with French Valley, as it will be slightly further south along U.S. 127.

This week six pre-stressed concrete girders were placed on a new bridge being constructed for the newly straightened road.

The new span is 143-feet long and each of the girders was lifted into place by two cranes working together.

The trucks transporting the mammoth 140,000 pound concrete beams were also two units working together.

As the front of the beam rested on one trailer directly behind the truck there was another trailer strapped to the far end of the beam.

As the tractor trailer combinations had to turn off U.S. 127 and then navigate the s-turns along the present path of the road the rear trailer used hydraulics, controlled by the driver in the cab over 140-feet away, to steer the rear through the bends.