Pikeville Cut-Through
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Pikeville, Kentucky
Pikeville is a city in Pike County, Kentucky. The population was 6,903 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Pike County.-History:On March 25, 1822, the county's government officials decided to build a new county seat named Liberty, one and one-half mile below the mouth of the Russell Fork...
, United States created by the Army Corps of Engineers, through which passes a four-lane divided highway
Divided Highway
Divided Highway is a compilation album by American rock band The Doobie Brothers, released in 2003. . All tracks are taken from the albums Cycles and Brotherhood .-Track listing:...
(Corridor B, numbered as US 23, US 119
U.S. Route 119
U.S. Route 119, commonly abbreviated as US 119, is a spur of US 19. It is a north–south route that was an original United States highway of 1926. It is often referred to as Corridor G east of US 23 and KY 80 in Kentucky to Interstate 64 at Charleston, West Virginia.- Kentucky :US 119 is a two...
, US 460, and KY 80), a railroad line (CSX
CSX Transportation
CSX Transportation operates a Class I railroad in the United States known as the CSX Railroad. It is the main subsidiary of the CSX Corporation. The company is headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, and owns approximately 21,000 route miles...
Big Sandy Subdivision), and the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River
Levisa Fork River
The Levisa Fork is a tributary of the Big Sandy River, approximately long, in southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky in the United States....
. It is one of the largest civil engineering
Civil engineering
Civil engineering is a professional engineering discipline that deals with the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical and naturally built environment, including works like roads, bridges, canals, dams, and buildings...
projects in the western hemisphere
Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere or western hemisphere is mainly used as a geographical term for the half of the Earth that lies west of the Prime Meridian and east of the Antimeridian , the other half being called the Eastern Hemisphere.In this sense, the western hemisphere consists of the western portions...
, moving nearly 18000000 cubic yards (13,761,987.4 m³) of soil and rock, compared to the Big Dig (15 million cubic yards) and the Panama Canal
Panama Canal
The Panama Canal is a ship canal in Panama that joins the Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean and is a key conduit for international maritime trade. Built from 1904 to 1914, the canal has seen annual traffic rise from about 1,000 ships early on to 14,702 vessels measuring a total of 309.6...
(240 million cubic yards). Dr. William Hambley, who served as mayor of Pikeville for 29 years, Robert H. Holcomb, Chamber of Commerce president, and Henry Stratton, local attorney, spearheaded the project.
The Pikeville Cut-Through is 1300 feet (396.2 m) wide, 3700 feet (1.1 km) long, and is 523 feet (159.4 m) deep. The project was completed in 1987 following 14 years of work at a cost of $77.6 million.
Purpose
The project initially envisioned by Dr. William Hambley in 1960, who had been raised in the city of Pikeville. He simply wanted to relocate the railbed because he wanted to eliminate the dust that came from the coal hauling trains that passed through the city daily. In 1963, Pikeville received a $38,000 federal grantGrant (money)
Grants are funds disbursed by one party , often a Government Department, Corporation, Foundation or Trust, to a recipient, often a nonprofit entity, educational institution, business or an individual. In order to receive a grant, some form of "Grant Writing" often referred to as either a proposal...
for a railroad relocation feasibility study and was named a Model City by the recently formed Model Cities Agency, generating even more funding. By 1965, his plan had further developed to accommodate Corridor B of the Appalachian Development Highway System
Appalachian Development Highway System
The Appalachian Development Highway System is part of the Appalachian Regional Commission in the United States. See: .-History:...
, assuring the construction of the Pikeville Cut-Through.
It was also decided to relocate the Levisa Fork
Levisa Fork River
The Levisa Fork is a tributary of the Big Sandy River, approximately long, in southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky in the United States....
of the Big Sandy River, which then snaked through the downtown area, to eliminate almost yearly flooding. The river bed then was to be reclaimed, significantly increasing the available space for development within the city.
Construction
The project was constructed in four phases by the Army Corp of Engineers between November 26, 1973 and October 2, 1987.Phase I of construction began on November 26, 1973. By the end of Phase I, nearly 13000000 cubic yards (9,939,213.2 m³) of rock were blasted from Peach Orchard Mountain to create a channel for the road, railroad, and river. The cost of phase I at completion was $17,250,000.
Phase II of construction began on March 4, 1980. During this phase the coal tipples and railroad tracks were removed from downtown Pikeville, a bridge was constructed across the cut, the river was rerouted, and the former riverbed
Riverbed
Riverbed may refer to:*Stream bed, the channel bottom of a stream or river or creek*Wadi, a dry riverbed that contains water only during times of heavy rain*Riverbed Technology, an American technology company...
was filled. 5000000 cubic yards (3,822,774.3 m³) of soil was moved to create 240 acre (0.9712464 km²) of available land in downtown at a cost of $19,700,000.
Phase III and IV of construction began on March 15, 1983. The final stages consisted of: the construction of the downtown interchanges
Interchange (road)
In the field of road transport, an interchange is a road junction that typically uses grade separation, and one or more ramps, to permit traffic on at least one highway to pass through the junction without directly crossing any other traffic stream. It differs from a standard intersection, at which...
and flood wall
Flood wall
A flood wall is a primarily vertical artificial barrier designed to temporarily contain the waters of a river or other waterway which may rise to unusual levels during seasonal or extreme weather events...
s, another new bridge, and the construction of Hambley Boulevard atop the former railbed – a lasting tribute to William Hambley. These two phases created 150 additional acres of downtown property at a cost of $19,700,000.
The project was dedicated on October 2, 1987.