Paris–Lexington Road Project: Project Report

The Paris-Lexington Road Project is the four-lane roadway reconstruction project of the two-lane Paris Pike, a 19-plus-km (12-plus-mi) section of US-27/58. This section of highway has been dedicated as a historic corridor and has had its share of archeological and environmental sensitive sites along the corridor. In addition, Paris Pike is one of the major thoroughfares through picturesque horse farms that make up the prosperous Kentucky thoroughbred industry. Over the years, safety and traffic operations problems had become noticeable to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KyTC). However, when KyTC attempted to use standard department procedures to study, plan, design, and construct a solution to rectify these problems, they found that the special circumstances of Paris Pike required something innovative. Some background is given on the circumstances that KyTC had to consider: historic, environmental, and political. To ensure compliance with the historic and environmental preservation requirements of this project, KyTC used innovative approaches in contracting the design segments. Preliminary findings are reported on the effectiveness of the construction phase of the first three of five design segments that have been contracted. Although further investigation is ongoing, a comparison can be made of the results observed and the typical results achieved for highway construction projects performed under traditional design-bid-build contracting methods.