A roadway in the West End of Bowling Green that saw 119 crashes and one pedestrian death between 2018 and 2022 now is the subject of a modernization plan. 

The Bowling Green Metropolitan Planning Organization has opened a public comment period until July 17, allowing the public to weigh in on the addition of an amendment to its 2045 Metropolitan Transportation and 2024-2028 Transportation Improvement Plans. The amendment would introduce a plan to “modernize US-68 between Victoria Street and Clay Street,” according to a news release. 

“Veterans (US-68) is a very important stretch of road, and at the same time, it also divides a community,” MPO Coordinator Carroll Duckworth said. “This project is aimed to unify both sides of the road and also make it safer to provide residents an easier means to be able to cross over that road and bring the community a little bit more unified than it had been.”

Along with unifying the community, the plan would also “address racial equity in an underserved community with high rates of poverty,” according to the project plan. The plan states that “the proposed project is located in a census tract where 40% of the individuals live below the poverty level” and has a population that is 22% foreign born who face “overwhelming challenges in securing transportation due to the barriers that exist in obtaining valid Kentucky Driver’s Licenses.”

“These disadvantaged residents will now have safer access to essential services, employment, education and health care opportunities,” the plan states. 

What Chief District Engineer of KYTC District 3 Joe Plunk referred to as “the key to all this” modernization is a two-lane roundabout at the Veterans Memorial intersection at Old Barren River Road and Victoria Street. He said the roundabout would be “a large roundabout like you see out at University and Nashville Road,” eliminating the signal and imposing slower speeds.

“Roundabouts are designed generally for 25 mph,” Plunk said. “By eliminating the signal and putting in a roundabout, it helps enforce slower speeds as vehicles come into the urban area.”

The modernization would also include a center median, “Kind of like Cemetery Road” Plunk said. He said the median “would eliminate some opportunities to turn left from a side street onto Veterans, so it reduces conflicts of vehicles, which also reduces conflict for and confusion for vulnerable users like pedestrians and bicycles.”

The project would also include “wider seven-foot sidewalks, new lighting, landscaping and shorter crossing distances for pedestrians,” the plan states. 

Funding for the project comes from a grant for $11 million. Plunk said that currently, all phases necessary in the project would equal the total of the grant. 

“It’s not just a hope, that is the goal of the project team to stay within that, because that’s the grant. If we go over that, we have to find other means to pay,” Plunk said. “The grant is $11 million and we need to stay within that budget.”

As for a timeline, Plunk said the project is “just getting out of the starting gates” and at “an absolute best case” would see a two to a two and a half year time frame. 

“We’re not ready to construct. We’re not ready to even buy property. We’re just really taking in these comments about the funding so that we can start the design,” Plunk said.