The massive project to change the path of US-127 from the southern end of the recently completed bypass in Jamestown to the bypass being constructed at Albany is on hold.

District Engineer Neal Shoemaker with the Transportation Cabinet office in Somerset said the whole project has moved down on the priority list.

"Right now we don't have enough money to build the projects we have designed," the engineer explained.

With the state's budget tight the transportation cabinet has been slowing work on those projects that are not very far along, he explained.

Last winter the plan had been to announce this August the path of the new road and where the bridge across the Cumberland River would be.

"I don't know where it is in the 6-year road plan now," Shoemaker said. "I haven't heard anything on it (the re-alignment) for a while."

Tom Hale, with the US Army Corps of Engineers said he hasn't talked with state officials in some time regarding the new road's path or a timetable for its construction.

He said the Corps was in favor of moving the traffic off the dam and onto a bridge, but he added that the reason was the safety of the present road.

All of the new designs are wider and follow a much straighter path than the present road.

The issue Hale stressed was that none of the proposals have a 90 degree turn with a rock cliff in the path of any vehicle that doesn't make the turn, as the present road does.

Neither man said he had any idea if or when another announcement about the road would be forthcoming.