By BILL MARDIS, Editor Emeritus
Somerset — A few years back it would have been an impossible dream to drive through the pastoral and almost remote communities of Elihu and Cabin Hollow on a four-lane highway.
The fantasy is about to be reality. Stephanie Daffron, public information officer for Kentucky Department of Highways’ District 8, said engineers are planning to open the two southbound lanes of new Ky. 1247 by Memorial Day weekend. The northbound lanes, currently accommodating two-way traffic, opened last fall.
Daffron said work on the median is ongoing and application of the final blacktop surface on southbound lanes will begin shortly. The road base and initial blacktop are in place.
New Ky. 1247 replaces a narrow, crooked, two-lane road that dips sharply to Pitman Creek south of Elihu; climbs upward through Cedar Grove; then meanders past John Sherman Cooper Power Station to U.S. 27. Old Ky. 1247 will remain for local travel.
The new highway is a scenic route. A bridge, 521 feet long, takes motorists 85 feet above picturesque Pitman Creek. The view in all directions is peaceful countryside, framed by rolling foothills of the Cumberland Mountains.
Hinkle Contracting Corporation of Somerset and Paris, constructed the little more than three miles of new road for $22,597,148. It extends from the southeastern bypass across from Murphy Avenue Extension to Bend of the Lake Road just east of the intersection with U.S. 27. At this point it joins the partial cloverleaf interchange with U.S. 27 and Ky. 90 in northern Burnside.
The route of new Ky. 1247 is the original recommendation for the southeastern bypass (Ky. 914). However, the southeastern bypass took a political curve and ended up feeding onto U.S. 27, the busy road it was intended to bypass.
