Kentucky has one of the most-feared (and scenic) routes in the US, driver survey shows
Kentucky’s Bert T. Combs Mountain Parkway — a 75-mile long state highway that stretches throughout the eastern part of the state — is among the most-feared roads in the nation, according to a survey of 3,000 drivers.
The survey ranks Kentucky’s Mountain Parkway as the sixth most feared in the country, just behind Nevada’s U.S. Route 50, a desert highway known as the loneliest road in America.
Commissioned by Gunther Mitsubishi and conducted by QuestionPro, the survey asked regular road-trippers which routes in each state they fear breaking down on the most.
As for Kentucky’s top pick, Mountain Parkway, there’s been a massive project underway since 2015 to modernize the winding road and widen it from two to four lanes.
About 70% of the project is either complete or still under construction. Once it’s done, however, you’ll be able to drive from Pikeville to Paducah and back on what the project’s official website calls a “four-lane, high speed route across the length of the state.”
Here’s what to know about the project to expand and modernize Kentucky’s Mountain Parkway, including how the highway stacks up against others across the country.
How does the Mountain Parkway compare to other roads?
The survey ranks these roads as the 10 “Most Feared Routes” in the U.S. The first five generally pass through vast, desolate swaths of land with few services and possibly dangerous weather hazards, including lava flows or 120-degree heat.
New Mexico: U.S. Route 285
California: Death Valley Road (SR-190)
Texas: U.S. Route 90
Hawaii: Saddle Road (Hawaii Route 200)
Nevada: U.S. Route 50 “The Loneliest Road in America”
Kentucky: Mountain Parkway (KY-9002)
South Dakota: U.S. Route 14A (Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway)
Alaska: Dalton Highway (AK-11)
New York: State Route 17
Mississippi: U.S. Route 49
What makes the Mountain Parkway Kentucky’s most-feared road?
Back in 1963, when the route opened as one of Kentucky’s first toll roads, the Mountain Parkway symbolized a major achievement for the state’s transportation system, according to a history of the highway on its project website.
Beginning in Winchester and passing through parts of Clark, Powell, Wolfe, Morgan and Magoffin counties before ending west of Salyersville, the road bridged rural Eastern Kentucky and the more commercial, central part of the state.
The route also opened up tourism destinations in Eastern Kentucky to more visitors, offering easier access to Natural Bridge and Jenny Wiley state resort parks.
At the parkway’s dedication ceremony in November 1963, then-Gov. Bert Combs, who championed the route’s creation, named its completion his proudest accomplishment. He called the Mountain Parkway the fulfillment of “an age-old dream of Kentucky’s mountain people,” according to the project’s history.
Sixty years later, Mountain Parkway is showing its age.
While it begins as a four-lane highway stretching for 46 miles starting from Interstate 64 at Winchester, the parkway narrows to three or two lanes as it runs further east to Salyersville.
Improving the route’s safety is a top priority, according to a project description on its website. Work will focus on modernizing roads and designing interchanges to be safer, with longer on and off ramps so drivers have more time to merge. Other changes involve “eliminating dangerous curves around the mountain” and separating opposing lanes of traffic, the website’s homepage reads.
Along with improving safety, widening lanes from two to four along the parkway will boost the route’s ability to accommodate traffic, the website says. That means better access to jobs, health care and education for a region that’s largely been left behind by coal companies.
What’s the status of improvements to Mountain Parkway?
The project officially got its start in 2015 with construction on the Magoffin County central segment. Most is either completed or still under construction, with the Wolfe County segment expected to be completed by 2027, the project’s website says.
Progress on the rest will largely depend on available state and federal funding. So far, the Mountain Parkway expansion has been the recipient of two major federal grants, including a $24 million grant in 2014 and more recently a 2020 Rebuilding America grant for $55 million.
A progress update video published in May shows contractors moving massive piles of dirt in Wolfe and Magoffin counties. In less than a year, text in the video states, nearly 1 million yards of earth has been moved to help widen the parkway in Wolfe County.
“(At) Magoffin West, they continue to build bridges and culverts and continue with the earth-moving projects,” project manager Aric Skaggs says in the video. “It’s kind of hard to see from the existing Mountain Parkway, but by the end of the year people will really be able to see what’s happening.”
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