New Red River Road bridge moves forward

It’s been near­ly two years since the coun­ty declared an emer­gency and closed the old Red River Road bridge over the train tracks, but the 35 house­holds left iso­lat­ed by that deci­sion may soon get a new bridge.

Magistrate Ernest Pasley said Monday that the con­trac­tor, Stantec, expect­ed to have the design to the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet that day or the next day, and that CSX should have it in two or three weeks.

“We’re all work­ing hard to get this thing pushed through,” he said, and “it looks like we’re get­ting down to the goal line.”

Pasley said the coun­ty, which owns the bridge over the rail­road, must acquire five rights-of-way from prop­er­ty own­ers to build a big­ger bridge. If that hap­pens quick­ly, it could mean that bid let­ting for the project will occur soon.

“It’s clear to me that it’s going to hap­pen,” he said.

Unlike the old one-lane wood­en bridge paved with asphalt, the new one will be a sol­id-deck con­crete bridge span­ning the deep chasm.

County Judge-Executive R.J. Palmer said he has been work­ing on the project from the time Gov. Andy Beshear appoint­ed him on March 25 to fill the office left vacant by the res­ig­na­tion of Judge Les Yates. Palmer said the week­end after he was sworn in, he talked with Transportation Secretary Jim Gray, who told him he expect­ed to receive the design with­in six weeks. It arrived right on time.

“I have also reached out to CSX so they know that we would appre­ci­ate their swift review of that design so that we can get this thing out,” Palmer said.

Initially, state trans­porta­tion offi­cials didn’t think the bridge would be built in the fourth quar­ter of the 2027 fis­cal year, which begins July 1, 2026, but “that’s unac­cept­able,” Palmer said.

“We will advo­cate that it doesn’t take that long,” he promised.

County offi­cials said the envi­ron­men­tal review is fin­ished and the mon­ey is allo­cat­ed, so if CSX signs off on it and the coun­ty can get the rights-of-way, they should be able to let the bids.

“We may have a bet­ter idea once we see the final design, and my hope would be that the engi­neers could give us an esti­mate of the con­struc­tion time frame,” Palmer said.

The $1,610,290 allo­cat­ed for the project comes from a con­tin­gency fund and was not part of the cur­rent two-year road plan, accord­ing to Palmer. State Sen. Greg Elkins, R‑Winchester, who announced the mon­ey in April, com­mend­ed the new judge-exec­u­tive for mak­ing the bridge a priority.

“R.J. has done an out­stand­ing job shep­herd­ing this project and mak­ing sure it goes,” Elkins said. “In fact, R.J.’s first or sec­ond day as coun­ty judge, he was on the phone to me while I was in Frankfort, and we were talk­ing about this bridge. … It’s impor­tant to him, obviously.”

It’s also impor­tant to the res­i­dents of Red River Road.

Winchester City Clerk Joy Curtis, who lived on the road in the ear­ly 1980s, moved back there with her hus­band in 2023 when they built a house on the “bad side” of the bridge. Other rel­a­tives live near­by. Two of her aunts, who own the Red River Boat Dock, have lost busi­ness because of the bridge being out.

Closing the bridge has dou­bled the time it takes Curtis to get to work each day to about 30 minutes.

Curtis said she was hap­py to hear that there has been some move­ment on the project. So was her sis­ter-in-law, Alice Slone, but she said the process had tak­en too long. Slone said that hav­ing the bridge closed has been “a night­mare” for residents.

There are peo­ple in the neigh­bor­hood who have health issues, and as a retired reg­is­tered nurse for the local hos­pi­tal, she knows how impor­tant ambu­lance response times are. Slone said the “very dan­ger­ous” back­roads have “twists and turns,” and there’s lit­tle “vis­i­bil­i­ty” when driving.

She men­tioned that East Kentucky Power Coöperative has a back gate at its J.K. Smith Station that is opened when “the creek cross­ing” on Upper Howard’s is flood­ed, and emer­gency ser­vice providers sup­pos­ed­ly have a key to the gate.

Slone’s broth­er, who lives with her, vis­its the adult day care in Clay City every day.

“We have to take him down every morn­ing and walk him across” the bridge to meet a bus on the oth­er side, then meet the bus in the after­noon to bring him home, she said. But she doesn’t like the idea of a bus that size hav­ing to trav­el the backroads.

She also doesn’t like hav­ing her fam­i­ly or neigh­bors encoun­ter­ing big Amazon deliv­ery trucks on those roads, so she has her pack­ages sent to her daugh­ter in town.

Slone not­ed that when a neigh­bor passed away last sum­mer, they had to put his body on a stretch­er and walk him across the bridge to a wait­ing vehicle.

Slone said her grand­fa­ther, Leoff Curtis, helped build the Red River Road bridge in 1912. It has need­ed replac­ing for many years.