Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear announced Monday that Kentucky and Indiana had jointly applied for approximately $632 million in federal grants to build a river crossing between the two states.
The crossing between Henderson, Kentucky, and Evansville, Indiana, along I-69 would seek to use Multimodal Discretionary Grant Program funds created as part of the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The two states are proposing to put up $513.7 million from other sources if the grant application is approved. Already the states have obligated $265 million to environmental studies and construction for the first section of the project in Henderson.
“Our administration has pledged to seek and compete for every available federal dollar for this much anticipated and long-needed project. This application, in concert with our partners at the Indiana Department of Transportation, follows through on that pledge,” Gov. Beshear said.
The $1.4 billion project, I-69 ORX, is one of three mega-projects at the top of Beshear’s transportation priority list, along with the $3.6 billion Brent Spence Corridor Project linking Northern Kentucky and Cincinnati, as well as the $400 million expansion and extension of the Mountain Parkway through Eastern Kentucky.
The I-69 project has three sections – extending the Kentucky approach from I-69 in Kentucky to the Ohio River, a new four-lane Ohio River bridge and the Indiana approach to the bridge. Work on the Kentucky extension began in 2022. Construction on the Indiana section is expected to begin in 2024. And the bridge is expected to be complete in 2031. If the grant is approved, officials said, the timeline could be accelerated.
“Completing the crossing is critical for connectivity, safety and the competitiveness of our economies. But its importance extends far beyond this region, and that makes it worthy of significant federal funding. It’s important nationally because the crossing will close a major gap in the I-69 corridor. It’s important internationally because I-69 is a major freight corridor stretching from Canada to Mexico,” the governor said.