Paul Oliva on YouTube just asked what's up with the construction on Richmond Road. I've been wondering the same thing, honestly. It seems like it's been going on forever.

Well, Paul's timing is perfect because we're right in the thick of a major thirteen million dollar project that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet has been working on. They're installing these new traffic patterns called restricted crossing U-turns along Richmond Road and Athens-Boonesboro Road, south of Man o' War Boulevard.

Restricted crossing U-turns? That sounds complicated.

It's actually pretty clever. Instead of making left turns directly from side streets, drivers will turn right onto Richmond Road and then make a U-turn at specially designed crossovers. The transportation cabinet says these R-cuts can reduce crashes by up to forty percent and cut fatal accidents by more than fifty percent.

That makes sense given how dangerous that stretch is. I hear it's one of the worst in the state.

Exactly. Between twenty fifteen and twenty twenty, there were sixty-seven collisions just at the intersection with Yorkshire and Squires alone, including four serious injuries. The project should wrap up by fall of twenty twenty-six. Right now they're working on the median construction and installing the U-turn crossovers. They've already closed Aphids Way during construction, so folks are using Old Richmond Road as the detour.

At least there's an end in sight. Spring of twenty twenty-seven can't come soon enough for that corridor.

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