Existed: 1956 – present Constructed 1956 | Length 221 km | |
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South end: I-65 at Tennessee state line North end: I-65 at Indiana state line | ||
Interstate 65 (I-65) enters the US state of Kentucky 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Franklin. It passes by the major cities of Bowling Green, Elizabethtown, and Louisville before exiting the state.
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Route description
Along its 137.32-mile (221.00 km) length in the Bluegrass State, I-65 passes Mammoth Cave National Park, Bernheim Forest, the National Corvette Museum and the Fort Knox Military Reservation before entering the state's largest metropolitan area, Louisville.
It has interchanges with four of the state's parkways. The first of these is with the William H. Natcher Parkway at Bowling Green, followed by the Louie B. Nunn Cumberland Parkway north of that city between Smiths Grove and Park City. At Elizabethtown, it has two more parkway interchanges with the Wendell H. Ford Western Kentucky Parkway and the Martha Layne Collins Bluegrass Parkway.
I-65 also has interchanges with I-265, I-264, and a complex junction with I-64 and I-71 along the south bank of the Ohio River in central Louisville. From there, northbound motorists on I-65 cross into Indiana on the Abraham Lincoln Bridge, while southbound I-65 traffic enters Kentucky from Jeffersonville, Indiana via the John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge.
The widest stretch of I-65 in its entirety is in Louisville, at Kentucky Route 1065 (Outer Loop) where the mainline is 14 lanes wide.
The highway crosses between the Central and Eastern time zones at the border of Hart and LaRue counties, respectively.
For most of 2016, the Ohio River Bridges Project routed all I-65 traffic onto the Abraham Lincoln Bridge (a six-lane cable-stayed bridge now carrying only northbound traffic) while rebuilding the deck of the 1963 John F. Kennedy Memorial Bridge to accommodate six lanes of all-southbound traffic. The project is also completing the rebuild of the Kennedy Interchange just south of both bridges in downtown Louisville. On December 30, 2016, both I-65 bridges began using electronic toll collection (ETC) to charge motorists for their use of this previously toll-free Interstate crossing.
History
From July 25, 1954 until June 30, 1975, the portion from the outskirts of Louisville to Elizabethtown was a toll road bearing the Kentucky Turnpike name. It was signed with a distinctive sign featuring a cardinal, the state bird of Kentucky. Unlike most states, Kentucky law requires that tolls be removed when the original construction bonds are paid off. The road was thus the first of the state's extensive system of toll roads to be made free. Unlike the other roads, which maintain their separate names when becoming toll-free, the Kentucky Turnpike signs were removed. It is today almost impossible to find any traces of its former toll status.
On November 15, 2006, the stretch of I-65 from Bowling Green to Louisville was renamed the Abraham Lincoln Memorial Highway.
On February 12, 2007, a bill passed the Kentucky Senate to rename I-65 in Jefferson County the "Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway". Signage was posted July 25, 2007.
On July 15, 2007, Kentucky officially raised its speed limits on Interstate and State Parkway Highways to 70 miles per hour (110 km/h). Until that date, Kentucky was the only state along I-65's path that had a speed limit of 65 mph (105 km/h).
In 2008, Governor Steve Beshear ordered the entire route to be widened to a minimum of six lanes through the entire state. As of 2016, the majority of this project is complete.