Interstate 64 or I -64 is an Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of Kentucky. The highway runs from Louisville on the Indiana border via the capital city of Frankfort, and via Lexington to the West Virginia border at Catlettsburg. The route in Kentucky is 298 kilometers long.
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Travel directions
I-64 at Downtown Louisville.
I-64/I-75 at Lexington.
I-64 at Winchester in Eastern Kentucky.
Louisville
Interstate 64 in Indiana enters Kentucky via the double-deck Sherman Minton Bridge over the Ohio River. This takes you straight to Louisville, the state’s largest city with a population of 712,000. One almost immediately crosses Interstate 264, the inner ring of Louisville. The highway then runs on the bank of the Ohio River, through the western neighborhoods of Louisville. The highway has 2×3 lanes here. At the height of downtown Louisville, one crosses Interstate 65, which runs from Nashville to Indianapolis. This is the Kennedy Interchange, where Interstate 71 to Cincinnatiruns. After that, I-64 has 2×2 lanes, passing through the eastern suburbs. They then cross Interstate 264 for the second time.
After that, 2×3 lanes are available again, and the journey begins through the outer rows of suburbs, all of which are very small, but together form a fairly large urban area. There is a large industrial estate along the highway at Jeffersontown. On the east side of Jeffersontown, one crosses Interstate 265, the outer ring of Louisville. Then they leave the agglomeration.
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Central Kentucky
East of Louisville, US 60 parallels I-64. You pass through slightly sloping area with occasional small forests. After about 55 kilometers you reach the state capital, Frankfort, a city with 28,000 inhabitants. Here one crosses US 127, a multi-lane highway that runs south from Cincinnati to Danville. A high bridge crosses the Kentucky River. On the east side of Frankfort one crosses US 60, which runs through to Lexington. the US 460 then runs to Paris. Midway crosses US 62, the road from Lawrenceburg in the south to Maysville on the Ohio border. It also crosses US 421, which runs from Madison in Indiana to Lexington.
One then reaches the city of Lexington, a larger city with 276,000 inhabitants. On the north side, Interstate 75 merges into I-64 from Cincinnati. Both roads are then double-numbered along Lexington. It then crosses US 68, a multi-lane highway to Paris and Maysville. Not far after that, I-64 turns east, while I-75 heads south toward Knoxville and Chattanooga.
Eastern Kentucky
After Lexington, US 60 parallels I-64 again. At the town of Winchester, the Mountain Parkway turns off, a parkway to the hilly and sparsely populated central east of Kentucky, towards Pikeville. The I-64 then still runs through slightly sloping and fairly unforested area. You pass Mount Sterling, a regional town where you cross the US 460, which runs from Paris to Pikeville, more or less parallel to the earlier Mountain Parkway. The area then becomes more hilly, approaching Daniel Boone National Forest. One then enters the large forest areas of eastern Kentucky. The I-64 winds through the hills here, and there are occasional nice views. At the village of Catlettsburg one crosses the River Big Sandy, also the border with West Virginia. Here, Interstate 64 in West Virginia continues to Huntington, Charleston, and Richmond.
History
The first sections of I-64 opened to traffic in the early 1960s. In 1962, the double-deck Sherman Minton Bridge over the Ohio River in Louisville opened to traffic, on the border with Indiana. By 1962, much of the route between Louisville and Frankfort was completed, except for the urban portion in Louisville itself. A section between Clark and Mount Sterling, east of Lexington, was also completed. By 1964 this section had extended west to Lexington, to the interchange with I-75. Also, the I-64 at Louisville was extended to the I-265, so that the urban part was still missing. In 1965, the easternmost portion of I-64 opened from the Ashland region to the West Virginia border. Circa 1967, the first section opened to traffic in Louisville, a short leg east of I-65. I-64 was also extended in the east of the state from Mount Sterling to Owingsville. In the late 1960s, most of I-64 through eastern Kentucky was completed, as well as the link between Frankfort and Lexington. The route was also opened in eastern Louisville. The last two links to open were the Ohio River line in downtown Louisville, and a section between Grayson and Ashland in eastern Kentucky. This last part was opened around 1975, the route through Louisville was not ready until the late 1970s.
Widenings
In Louisville, I-64 has had 2×3 lanes since at least the 1980s until the interchange with I-265 in the eastern suburbs. In 2010, I-64 was widened further east to Simpsonville and to Shelbyville in 2014 to 2×3 lanes.
East of Lexington, I-64 has been widened in three phases from 2×2 to 2×3 lanes to the Mountain Parkway at Winchester. In about 2002, the section was widened from I-75 to the Clark County border, to Winchester in about 2006, and to the Mountain Parkway in 2010.
Between 2013 and 2016, the Louisville “spaghetti interchange” with I-65 and I-71 was reconstructed, along with a new bridge over the Ohio River. The capacity of I-64 between I-65 and I-71 has been increased from 8 to 14 lanes, with a parallel structure and grade- separated braiding.
