Another 41 miles of the new Interstate 69 corridor in western Kentucky will receive the familiar red, white and blue shields by the end of the year. A $3.23 million contract to construct and place signs in Henderson, Hopkins and Webster counties was awarded recently by the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KyTC).
The contract, awarded to Eden Fence Inc., will extend I-69 signage along the former Edward T. Breathitt Pennyrile Parkway from mile-point 35.6 in Hopkins County to the Henderson Bypass (Ky. 425) at Exit 76. The contract includes updating signage along U.S. 41 and other nearby highways that now direct traffic to the parkway. It will include changing mile markers and exit numbers to reflect I-69 mileage.
The contract also includes rerouting a section of U.S. 41 at Henderson to replace a short section of the Pennyrile Parkway between the Henderson Bypass and the end of the parkway. The Ky. 2084 Connector from Ky. 351 will be extended southward to replace this altered section of U.S. 41 to the bypass.
The new signs are scheduled to be in place by Oct. 15.
Once complete, I-69 in Kentucky will run north to south from the Tennessee line at Fulton to the Ohio River at Henderson. It will include sections of Interstate 24, the Julian M. Carroll Purchase Parkway, the Wendell H. Ford Western Kentucky Parkway and the Pennyrile Parkway.
To date, 55 miles of the corridor are complete – from roughly Nortonville in Hopkins County to the interchange of I-24 and the Purchase Parkway near Calvert City in Marshall County.
The first I-69 shield was unveiled by Gov. Steve Beshear and then-Federal Highway Administrator Victor Mendez in October 2011.