Subdivision residents mount opposition to plan to extend Corbin Bypass

Above, Anthony and Shirley Holland, residents of Stonegate Subdivision, say they would be directly impacted by plans to extend the Corbin Bypass to I-75. They oppose the project which is in its earliest stages.

A preliminary plan to extend the Corbin Bypass through Knox and Laurel Counties all the way to a new exit near I-75 mile marker 31 is meeting with stiff resistance from homeowners who say they will be negatively impacted by the plan if it is carried through.

About 90 people attended a public information meeting hosted by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet at Lynn Camp High School on June 13 to hear details of the plan. Most of those in attendance were residents of subdivisions and communities that lie along four proposed routes for the extension.

Since the meeting, those opposed to the idea have been busy.

Jeff Sparks —a youth minister at Central Baptist Church and a resident of Stonegate Subdivision; an idyllic, upper-middle class community located off Ohler Road just outside of Corbin — is leading the charge in an effort to make sure the project never happens.

He’s printed flyers and registered a Facebook page dedicated to squelching the idea (www.facebook.com/stopcorbinbypassextension). He’s even printing t-shirts with a Stop Corbin Bypass Extension slogan and logo on them, and plans to go door-to-door to rally support against the new road.

“It’s a very real thing,” Sparks said. “I’ve lived in Corbin a good portion of my life and plan on being here a long time. This is very much putting all that in jeopardy. I’m all about the betterment of our community … but it’s literally going to be going through my front yard.”

“For everyone who raises their hand saying ‘you aren’t sacrificing for the great good,’ they would feel the same way if it was being built through their front yard.”

Sparks said he and his wife purchased the home roughly two years ago because of the safety and seclusion it offered. Stonegate has little traffic on its roadways and is characterized by expansive lawns, surrounding woods and generous space between homes.

And its bucolic surroundings and quiet nature are pervaded by very little noise from traffic.

Of the four routes currently being considered, Sparks said two of them would almost be going through his home. Others would be only yards from his property line. He has an 11-month-year-old son and worries about safety, along with concerns over noise pollution and air pollution the road may bring.

“I am looking to raise my son in a place where he can ride his bike and not be worried about getting hit by a semi truck,” Sparks said.

Plans for the road would also affect residents of Cobblestone Estates and Wildwood Trace subdivisions as well.

Sparks isn’t alone in his opposition.

Anthony and Shirley Holland, also residents of Stonegate, have similar objections.

State officials say the main idea behind the extension is to relieve traffic on U.S. 25 E and U.S. 25; main large truck traffic and motorists who are simply trying to get to I-75 or into Corbin.

Estimates and the public meeting put currently per-day traffic load on U.S. 25E at about 20,000 cars per day, and 17,500 on U.S. 25.

“They want to reroute trucks, so you can imagine what that would be like for us,” Holland said. “It would destroy our property value and the peacefulness in our subdivision.”

“If they are going to do this thing, I would rather them just go right through my house and buy me out.”

Jonathan Dobson, a spokesperson in the Office of Public Affairs at the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet District 11 Office in Manchester, said $500,000 has been appropriated to complete a study to see if the project is even feasible.

“The study has been initiated as a means of examining if this notion on the drawing board since the bypass was first built that it would eventually extend out to a new exit on I-75,” Dobson said. “The study is to see what is feasible, what is wanted and what is warranted and what is necessary … any of it, all of it or none of it.”

The study is all that is funded currently. The project is in its infancy. New roads typically take around 10 years from first planning to construction to complete. The study will continue for approximately a year, Dobson said.

“It is very, very preliminary,” Dobson said. “As it is now, we are just merely testing the waters.”

Some of the things taken into account in the study will be rights-of-way that will have to be purchased, effect on homeowners, and any other geographic or man-made obstacles like landfills, abandoned mines, bodies, graveyards … all of which are challenges this project faces.

Dobson said public input, particularly from landowners affected by any proposed road, is considered right alongside other things like safety, congestion relief, the economic interest of the community and convenience for drivers.

Besides the three options to extend the Bypass all the way to I-75, a fourth alternative was also given — merely to make a new road between U.S. 25 and I-75. Alongside that would go planned improvements to U.S. 25 and it’s intersection with U.S. 25E, often called “Malfunction Junction,” that could also address some congestion concerns.

Officials also say doing nothing is an option.

Sparks and Holland said simply connecting I-75 with U.S. 25 or not doing anything are acceptable plans.

Both argue that actually extending the Bypass would not only negatively impact their neighborhood, but would also hurt business on U.S. 25 E who like being located on a high-traffic thoroughfare.

“If you are running a business, you like the fact that potential customers are going up and down the highway in front of your business,” Holland, himself a business owner, said. “It just seems like this is not the right thing to do.”

Dobson said Transportation officials generally do not consider such economic impacts in their plans.

“The Transportation Cabinet does not build roads to spur development, nor is credence given to the possibility of development being hindered in one area,” Dobson said. “It has been noted in our experience that those fears business owners have, while a logical assumption, has not proven to be the case in other areas. We believe it is just a likely, if not more likely, that there are many people using that route in particular who are strictly driving to the interstate, a lot of that being truck traffic. So much of that traffic hinders the people who are coming to shop, stop and look.”

Sparks and Holland said officials told them another public meeting would be held in August to address the Bypass extension plan.

Dobson said no public meetings are scheduled at this point.