LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet finished road work on I-65 S in downtown Louisville, from the end of the Kennedy Bridge to “Hospital Curve” around the Muhammad Ali Blvd. overpass on Monday. 

The work was finished two days earlier than expected.

The work replaced “bridge expansion joints” on hospital curve. KYTC says replacing the joint will stop potholes from forming along it, which has been a problem in the past.

The work this past weekend also added a “high-friction surface treatment” from the end of the Kennedy Bridge to the Witherspoon Street overpass. This includes the Jefferson Street Downtown offramp where five semi tractor-trailers have crashed since May 3, the day of the Kentucky Derby.

Every one of these accidents has been a single vehicle accident, where only the tractor trailer was involved. As the FOCUS team found in an investigation earlier this month, loss of traction was a leading cause, and every crash happened in the rain.

“I’ve heard of it. I’ve heard of some people –like it’s made some people nervous, I don’t really care too much about it,” Brandon Mackay said. 

Mackay was driving his motorcycle in Clarksville, Ind. Tuesday but said he drives a fuel semi tractor-trailer for work.

The surface treatment is very visible to the naked eye; it’s much darker than the pavement on the Kennedy bridge.

“What you are seeing as you are approaching that section of I-65 is a mixture of epoxy as well as aggregate. So, it is a little darker in color. You might be able to feel it as you’re driving over it,” Morgan Woodrum said, a spokesperson for KYTC.

Two hours after the work on hospital curve and adding the surface treatment was declared over, KYTC reminded drivers that a multi-month lane closure on the Kennedy Bridge was starting on Tuesday.

This work is also to replace bridge expansion joint on the Kennedy Bridge. These joints look different, they look like interlocking metal fingers and are called “finger joints.”

The right three lanes are currently closed on the bridge. Drivers can still merge onto I-64 E/W and I-71 N, but they have a much shorter distance to find their correct lane. 

“I hate when they bottleneck it like that,” Mackay said as he watched our GoPro video of the current lane closures on the Kennedy Bridge. “You gotta get over pretty quick.”

The speed limit on the bridge is 50 mph. Woodrum says it’s important to go the speed limit, or go even slower, during this roadwork.

“We always monitor traffic control for any issues that arise. So we will be monitoring this as time goes on, and adjust if we need to,” she said.

The work on the Kennedy bridge will switch to the left side in a few months. The construction will go through the end of 2025 and may go until April 2026. 

► Contact FOCUS investigator/reporter Travis Breese at tbreese@whas11.com, or on X. 

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