[Dave Lawson]

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bwhite@thenewsenterprise.com

BULLITT COUNTY – Installation of median cable barrier along Interstate 65 south of Louisville began Friday and is expected to continue throughout the next two months in Bullitt and Hart counties, weather permitting.

The job will cause minimal traffic interruptions aside from sporadic interior shoulder closures, according to Kentucky Transportation Cabinet officials.

A separate guardrail replacement job also began last week north of Elizabethtown, causing temporary closures of the outbound shoulder of the northbound lane.

The Bullitt County portion of a 27-mile project, awarded to Michigan-based RMD Holdings Ltd., D.B.A. Nationwide, consists of barrier installation between the 109 and 116 mile points of I-65 between the Shepherdsville and Lebanon Junction exits.

Another 20 miles of barrier will be installed by the same firm alongside grassy median areas of I-65 in Hart and Barren counties, along with an extension of pre-existing cable median barrier along I-265 in Jefferson County.

According to KTC District 4 spokesperson Becky Judson, the contractor expects to complete the Bullitt County leg and begin work in Hart County sometime in February. The work in Jefferson County has a completion date of Oct. 1, 2009.

RMD undercut state engineer estimates by more than $2.2 million for the project.

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear announced that $10 million would be made available for installation of 44 miles of cable barrier last year following the deaths of 15 people in median crossover crashes during the previous 18 months.

Dave Lawson, an Elizabethtown man whose wife and daughter were killed in a five-fatality median crossover crash last year, rallied support for the barriers last spring.

Jason Lederer, a 22-year-old former Navy man with family in Greensburg, was the most recent median crossover fatality in Hardin County. Lederer died in December after crossing the median at the 98-mile point just north of Elizabethtown.

A total of 16 miles of cable barrier is slated for installation in Hardin County – a 9.5-mile span from Western Kentucky Parkway to the Colesburg Road bridge at mile point 100.5, and a 7.9-mile span between Ky. 84 and the East Rhudes Creek Road bridge at mile point 88.3.

That project, awarded to George B. Stone Co., LLC, of Sharpsburg (Ky.), will cost an estimated $1,946,894 - $800,000 less than state engineer estimates - and has a project completion date of October 2009.

Judson said it is unclear when the work inside Hardin County will begin.

Kentucky Transportation Cabinet spokesman Chuck Wolfe said 20 miles of I-65 median left unprotected by cable will have temporary concrete barriers installed which will remain in place for an indefinite time. Some of those barriers have already been installed south of Elizabethtown, Wolfe said.

All sections of I-65 awaiting widening to six lanes will have permanent barriers incorporated in the design.
Bob White can be reached at (270) 505-1750.