According to documents released as part of an open records request, we now learn that the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet abrubptly and without explanation cancelled a contract to study the impact of the 8664 plan to prevent the unecessary expansion of Interestate 64 in Louisville.

The KTC had a contract for $49,922.25 with Wibur Smith Associates to develop, review and present findings from a traffic study by March 18th. However, on March 10th, KTC engineer Scott Thomson cancelled the study in an email stating, “We have received word to stop immediately any further work.”

Isn’t that nice? The KTC WASTED nearly $50,000. Gone. Flushed down the toilet.

Here’s more from the 8664 release:

According to Ann Stansel, the KYTC’s Records Custodian, the agreement ended before a final report was prepared and therefore no report or raw data was accepted by the Transportation Cabinet. Therefore, no additional information from the report was available when 8664 filed a subsequent Open Records Requests on August 11, 2008.

8664 Co-Founder Tyler Allen said, “We heard lawmakers in the 2008 Special Session stress that the Bridges Project was becoming less viable. They talked about a “Plan B,” so we decided to file an open records request to see if they had explored any alternatives. Sure enough, they started looking at the 8664 alternative, but for some reason they decided not to finish the study.”

Read the rest after the jump…

According to Wilbur Smith Associates’ invoice #524261 dated June 25, KYTC owes the consultant $46,267.94 for completing 92.68% of the 8664 study.

Co-Founder JC Stites said, “If Governor Beshear is serious about his ‘Practical Solutions’ initiative to reduce road project costs, there is no better place to start than the $4.1 Billion Bridges Project. Finishing the 8664 study for $3,654.31 to save $2 Billion is a clear no-brainer.”

8664 has written a letter to Governor Beshear and copied Secretary of Transportation Joseph Prather asking that the State finish the 8664 study and release findings and offering financial and engineering support.

See results of the open records request by clicking here. (PDF Link)

Read the letter to Governor Beshear by clicking here. (PDF Link) Here’s an excerpt:

Dear Governor Beshear,

We believe it is time for Kentucky’s Transportation Cabinet to embrace forward-thinking initiatives like transit, context-sensitive design, traffic calming, “fix it first” road projects and complete transparency. For this reason, we applauded your recently announced “Practical Solutions” initiative to seek cost savings on Kentucky’s current road projects. We were encouraged to read that Kentucky’s largest road building project, the $4.1 Billion Ohio River Bridges Project is being reviewed.

-SNIP-

While we don’t know whether the study supports or refutes 8664, it must be released to give everyone more information to form an educated opinion on the best solution. Congressman John Yarmuth has been an opponent of the East End Bridge, but he was quoted as saying, “If somebody could prove to me that it (“8664”) would work, I would champion it.” You can answer this question and ensure that Kentucky doesn’t waste $46,267.94 on a study it never received. We hope that you will help us prove that 8664 will work and that you will join with other elected leaders in championing a solution that we believe will set the Commonwealth on a course to a brighter future.

Is anyone really surprised? It’ll be an embarrassingly cold day in hell before transportation is taken seriously in Kentucky.