April 29, 2009 by William.

Alabama has nearly 4.66 million people and 67 of them.  California has 36.76 million people and 58 of them.  Kentucky has 4.27 million people and 120 of them.  What are they? Counties.  As someone who’s been to more than 90 of Kentucky’s 120 counties, I can assure you that Kentucky has too many.

Given that cutting back on the number of counties would likely result in some layoffs-although some of those could come as much as 10 years down the road since Kentucky’s constitution already requires merging counties to maintain branch offices in each of the former counties-we don’t want to cut back too far initially.

Here are the 63 counties that I propose:

• Mississippi:  Former Hickman, Fulton, and Carlisle.  These 3 counties along the Mississippi River are experiencing little to negative population growth.  The county seat would be Clinton in the former Hickman County.
• McCracken:  McCracken would absorb Ballard, and the seat would remain in Paducah.
• Graves:  no changes, due to the fairly large area of this county.  Graves borders all the three counties that make up Mississippi County (see above).
• Marshall:  Marshall absorbs Calloway.  The new seat would be Benton, located in the current Marshall near the Calloway line.
• Crittenden: Crittenden merges with Livingston and keeps its current seat of Marion.
• Lyon:  Lyon joins Caldwell, and seats itself at Princeton in the former Caldwell.
• Christian: Trigg joins forces with the exponentially more populous Christian, and the seat remains at Hopkinsville, one of the larger cities in the Commonwealth.  Both Trigg and Christian are part of the Clarksville, Tennessee MSA.
• Todd: Todd survives in name only as it becomes part of Logan County.  Russellville, seat of the former Logan, becomes the new seat.
• Webster:  Webster and Hopkins keep the Webster name, but gets seated at Madisonville in the former Hopkins.
• Union:  The city of Henderson-a suburb of Evansville, Indiana-in Henderson County becomes the seat of a much larger Union.
• Muhlenberg:  Muhlenberg keeps its seat of Greenville and picks up McLean County.
• Daviess:  Daviess and Hancock merge.  Owensboro, the third wheel in the Evansville market, and the third largest city in Kentucky, remains the county seat.
• Butler:  Since Ohio County no longer is on the Ohio River, the Butler name stays.  The former Ohio seat of Hartford is the seat of the new Butler.
• Grayson:  Grayson absorbs Breckenridge and keeps its seat of Leitchfield along the Wendell H. Ford Kentucky Parkway.
• Warren:  Bowling Green, nipping on the heels of Owensboro to become Kentucky’s third larges city, remains the county seat.  Warren picks up Edmonson County, which includes part of Mammoth Cave.
• Simpson:  Simpson picks up Allen as the two counties south of Bowling Green become one.  The former Allen seat of Scottsville becomes the new seat.
• Barren:  Barren keeps its name and its seat of Glasgow while adding its neighbor to the east, Metcalfe.
• Cumberland: Monroe, Cumberland, and Clinton go from three counties to one.  The current Cumberland seat of Burkesville provides a centrally-located seat for the new county.
• Adair:  Adair and Russell become a single county and keep Adair’s seat of Columbia.
• Hart:  Hart keeps its seat of Munfordville along I-65, and adds Green County.
• Nelson:  Nelson and Larue, which have relatively unusual shapes, become one.  Bardstown in the current Nelson remains the seat.
• Taylor:  Located along the line between the Eastern and Central Time Zones, there are no changes for Taylor.
• Washington:  Washington and Marion tie the knot, keeping Marion’s seat of Springfield (with hopes of landing the premiere for the next Simpsons movie).
• Lincoln:  Lincoln keeps its name even though it was born 29 years before Honest Abe.  Lincoln merges with Casey and uses the latter’s seat of Liberty.
• Wayne:  Since McCreary has no incorporated places within its borders, Wayne keeps its seat of Monticello (The Houseboat Capital of the World) while roughly doubling in size.
• Pulaski:  no changes for the county seated at Somerset.
• Knox:  Knox picks up Whitley, and moves its seat to Corbin, the largest city between the two, even though Williamsburg (Whitley) and Barbourville(Knox) were the seats.
• Bell: Bell absorbs Harlan County, and seats at the city of Harlan in the former county of the same name.
• Leslie:  Leslie and Perry (local pronunciation “Purry”) go from being two of the strangest shaped counties in Kentucky to a near-rectangle.  The former Perry seat of Hazard serves as the seat of the new Leslie.
• Letcher:  Letcher takes over its northen neighbor, Knott, and keeps Knott’s seat of Hindman.
• Pike:  no changes for what is already Kentucky’s largest county in area, and one of the top 10 in population.  Pike is one of the few counties in Kentucky that borders two states (West Virginia and Virginia)
• Floyd:  Floyd and Johnson assume the Floyd name and keep Floyd’s seat of Prestonsburg.
• Vinson:  The former Martin and Lawrence counties rename themselves after former US Chief Justice Frederick Moore Vinson, while keeping Martin’s seat of Inez.
• Boyd: Boyd and Greenup merge and move their seats from Catlettsburg (Boyd) and Greenup (Greenup) to Ashland, which straddles the current Boyd-Greenup line.  As a odd footnote, the city of Ashland has a population density almost twice that of Lexington, even though Ashland has 258,000 fewer people.
• Elliott:  Elliott and Carter merge and keep Carter’s seat of Grayson.
• Magoffin:  Magoffin and Morgan counties merge and keep Morgan’s seat of West Liberty (which is 100 miles east of Liberty in what is now Casey County).
• Breathitt:  Because of the size (in area) of Breathitt compared to its neighbors, no changes here.
• Owsley:  Two of Kentucky’s least populous and poorest counties, Lee and Owsley, join forces and try to pump some life into tiny Boonville, currently the seat of Owsely with a population just over 100.
• Clay:  The name stays since Kentucky will want to keep a county named after a cousin of Henry Clay, but the seat moves to one of the fastest growing places in the Commonwealth-London, currently the seat of Laurel.
• Rockcastle:  Rockcastle absorbs Jackson County and keeps the former’s seat of Mt. Vernon, convienently located off I-75.
• Estill:  Estill absorbs Powell, and keeps Estill’s seat of Irvine (pronounced “Irvin”).
• Wolfe:  Wolfe absorbs Menifee, and keeps the former’s seat of Campton.
• Madison:  Madison absorbs Garrard, due to the unusual shape of the latter and the long border between the two.  The new county keeps Madison’s seat of Richmond.
• Clark:  This suburban county in the Lexington area sees no changes.
• Bourbon:  The more rural side of greater Lexington, Bourbon and Nicholas keep Bouron’s seat of Paris.
• Rowan:  Rowan keeps its seat of Morehead and adds Fleming County.
• Bath:  Since most states have a Montgomery County, Bath keeps its name but loses its seat to Montgomery’s seat of Mt. Sterling.
• Lewis:  Lewis and Mason merge, and keeps the latter’s seat of Maysville.
• Bracken:  Bracken swallows Kentucky’s least populous county, Robertson, and keeps its seat of Brooksville.
• Scott:  Scott takes over Harrison, and keeps its seat at the more populous Georgetown-located at the southern end of the county a few miles from Lexington.
• Grant: Grant and Pendleton tie the knot and use Grant’s current seat of Williamstown.
• Miami:  Formed from two of Kentucky’s more populous counties, Kenton and Campbell, Miami County brings a number of Cincinnati’s Kentucky suburbs together.  Newport (Campbell) gets the nod for the county seat over fellow co-county seat Alexandria and Kenton’s seats of Covington and Independence.
• Boone:  Suburban Boone and rural Gallatin merge to bring the southwestern part of Greater Cincinnati together at Boone’s seat of Florence.
• Carroll:  Carroll keeps its seat of Carrollton while merging with tiny Trimble County.
• Henry:  Henry and Owen merge and keep the fomer’s seat of Eminence.
• Lexington-Fayette Urban:  No changes for the only city-county government in Kentucky.
• Woodford:  Kentucky’s wealthiest county absorbs one of the fastest growing, Jessamine.  The new Woodford keeps its seat at Versaillies.
• Mercer:  Mercer and Boyle merge.  Although Danville (Boyle) is better known and slightly larger, the county seat is at the more centrally located Harrodsburg (Mercer)-the oldest city in Kentucky.
• Franklin:  The home of Kentucky’s capital, Frankfort, absorbs nearby Anderson, already part of the Frankfort Micropolitan Statistical Area.  The more populous Frankfort remains the county seat.
• Oldham:  This fast growing suburban/exurban area sees no changes, and escapes being annexed by Louisville (for now).
• Shelby: The state’s sixth fastest-growing county (by percentage) absorbs the state’s fastest-growing county, Spencer.  The two already see quite a bit of commuter traffic between Shelbyville and Taylorsville, as the two seats are only 18 miles apart.  Shelbyville gets the nod as the county seat.
• Jefferson:  The state’s largest county absorbs Bullitt, its neighbor to the south.  Part of Bullitt actually have Louisville mailing addresses.  Since Louisville already has Metro Government (city merged with county), unincorporated Bullitt County would become part of the “city” of Louisville.  The new Jefferson County would have a population approaching 800,000 (roughly 600,000 would be attributed to the unincorporated balance of the county, i.e., “Louisville”).  Jefferson County also picks up part of Fort Knox, which is already a regular commute for many Louisvillians.

Eliminating 57 counties would save Kentucky millions of dollars each year, primarily in salaries (County Judge Executives, Fiscal Court Commissioners, County Clerks, Commonwealth Attorneys, etc.).  The state would also have to spend less administering programs to supervise local governments, such as audits from the Auditor of Public Accounts and the Department of Local Government.  Residents of Louisville and Lexington would see a greater percentage of their taxes stay at home rather than going to support counties that need state assistance to maintain a fully-staffed local government.  Residents across the state would have their lives simplified by their being fewer taxing districts, fewer school districts, having to change their license plates less often when moving, etc.

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April 25, 2009 by William.

Interstate 64 currently exists as a 954-mile freeway from suburban St. Louis, Missouri to Chesapeake, Virginia.  In between, I-64 currently serves such places as Evansville, Indiana (via I-164/Future I-69), Louisville, Lexington, Huntington, Charleston, and Richmond.

My plan would leave the bulk of I-64 unchanged, with 2 major exceptions: adoption of the 8664 plan to bypass Louisville, and a re-routing through Eastern Kentucky.   The plan would open up Louisville’s waterfront, connect Louisville’s East End to Southern Indiana, and better connect Eastern Kentucky to the rest of the state.

The 8664 site discusses the re-routing of the Louisville and Southern Indiana portions of I-64 at length.  If you initially dismissed this plan in the past, you might want to take a look at the rendering of Waterfront Parkway, a surface street that would replace the current Interstate 64, and its connection to the existing I-64 freeway (which they call I-364).

Another tweak I would make for the Louisville area would be to add an exit for Clark Station Road near the Jefferson/Shelby County line, splitting up one of the longest stretches of freeway in Kentucky between exits-and since one of those exits is I-265, that means it’s nearly 11 miles between Blankenbaker Parkway and KY 1848 in Simpsonville.

I-64 would remain unchanged from Simpsonville to Winchester, where I-64 currently has a junction with the Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway.  An upgraded Mountain Parkway-part of which is a freeway, part of which is currently a two-lane highway-would become part of Interstate 64.  I-64 would then cover about 45 miles of new terrain, following US 460/KY 114 towards Pikeville.  In Pikeville, I-64 would meet up and overlap with the already-planned Interstate 66 and continue in to West Virginia.

In West Virginia, I-64 would need to cover very little additional terrain apart from the planned I-66 to rejoin the current I-64 at Crab Orchard, and would generally follow the route of WV 10 and WV 16.

What currently is almost a three-hour trip from Pikeville, Kentucky to Beckley, West Virginia, is reduced to about 45 miles.  The 213 miles between Winchester, Kentucky and Beckley, West Virginia is reduced to about 170 miles.

What happens to the rest of the current I-64 in Kentucky and West Virginia? It could become an extension of Interstate 79, even though it runs east to west like the Interstate 49 extension in Louisiana.  This portion could also be assigned a new number such as I-58 (I-60, I-62, and I-68 would be out of the question because of some US Highways that run through the Lexington area).

Should the Bluegrass Parkway ever connect to I-64 in Lexington, there would be an opportunity to further extend that Interstate designation (whatever it may be) through Lexington, to I-65 in Elizabethtown, down I-65 for a couple of miles, and down the portion of the Western Kentucky parkway not absorbed by I-66.

The I-64/I-77 overlap in West Virginia would simply become I-77.

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April 25, 2009 by William.

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