Concrete Pours Continue on New Canton Bridge

The contractor building the new US 68/KY 80 Lake Barkley Bridge at Canton is making good progress, according to state officials. 

Keith Todd of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet says construction remains on track to be ready for 2-lane traffic in the spring of 2018.

The contractor started pouring concrete on the deck of the new bridge in June, and both east approach spans are done, with two sections of the west approach remaining to be poured. The contractor has completed pouring of concrete decking on about half of the main span.

Engineers believe all of the concrete work can be finished by the end of the year. That will allow tensioning of the arch cables to begin as they work toward opening two lanes of traffic on the new bridge in the spring. Once 2-lane traffic is moved to the new bridge, work on finalizing roadway connections and other finish work will continue on the new structure through the rest of 2018.

Moving traffic to the new bridge would also allow preparation to begin for demolition of the existing bridge. The US Coast Guard has requested that the existing bridge be removed as quickly as possible once traffic flow begins on the new structure.

An identical bridge at Aurora over Kentucky Lake opened in 2016. The two 2-lane bridges caused traffic issues on the otherwise 4-lane U.S. highway, and they were not up to the latest standards.