UPDATED: Public meeting on widening of Falls Hwy. rescheduled for March 19

 The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet is taking the next step in widening Cumberland Falls Hwy. between Fifth Street Road and the Corbin Bypass by unveiling the concepts and ideas that have been developed for the project on March 19.

A public meeting will be held at the Corbin Center from 5 to 7 p.m. to allow the public to see the work and give comments and other feedback on it.

“Both written and oral statements will be accepted at the meeting,” stated Les Dixon, a spokesperson for the transportation cabinet district office in Manchster. “A tape recorder will be made available for those who desire to make oral statements, and a comment sheet will be distributed to make it more convenient to provide written comments.”

Written statements will be accepted for a period of 15 days after the meeting.

Dixon said previously that purchase of right of ways for the project is scheduled to occur this year, with utility relocation occurring in 2016 and construction beginning in 2017.

Project Manager Phillip Howard said previously that the project is necessary because of the increasing amount of traffic on the road on a daily basis and the increasing number of wrecks. According to a traffic study the Ky. Department of Transportation conducted in 2011, more than 19,000 vehicles used the road between the bypass and the interstate, while approximately 12,000 vehicles travel the road between the interstate and Fifth Street Road.

In two-and-a-half years, that same stretch of road has been the site of 268 traffic crashes.

Howard noted that the plans for the project remain up in the air. Options include eliminating some of the 88 traffic access points through the use of frontage and backage roads and the installation of a median barrier and turn lanes. Changing the timing of traffic lights to improve traffic flow and reducing the number of “conflict points,” which are places where potential wrecks occur.

Howard said previously that the estimated $11.86 million required for the project is available.

“It is a real project,” Howard said previously.

The meeting had been scheduled for last Thursday but was rescheduled because of the weather.