City commissioners approved an extension of Fairview Drive Monday during a special called meeting. The road currently starts at the corner of Foors Lane and Old Hartford Road and ends right past Calumet Trace, but commissioners approved its extension to begin behind The Downs neighborhood off of KY-54 and end at Highway 603.
City Manager Nate Pagan said the municipal order had to be approved quickly due to Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) stipulations, which was why the City’s special called meeting was announced, and the vote held, so quickly.
Though the Fairview Drive extension won’t directly affect the new Daviess County Middle School property in terms of entryways, DCPS Superintendent Matt Robbins said it will benefit those traveling to, from and through the area, and it will benefit DCPS as well.
“The fully completed Fairview Drive will be a major benefit to our school district,” he said. “If you take Fairview off 54, head toward The Downs and keep going, the road stubs out. That road completion would keep that road going and provide easier access to [DCMS].”
Robbins mentioned that the future DCMS property already has its primary entrance sorted out through the original property purchase agreement, wherein DCPS requested a three-lane roadway from the stoplight at 603 to serve as the entryway to DCMS. That $700,000 three-lane roadway was one of the stipulations DCPS made as part of the overall purchase agreement for the property.
“We weren’t dependent on the extension [made by the City] because a portion of that was already included in our property [purchase],” Robbins said. “We’d already taken care of that.”
However, DCMS will benefit from the extension in other ways, Robbins mentioned, including the ability to turn both right and left when coming out of the DCMS property.
“If that extension hadn’t been done, you’d have only been able to turn left [out of DCMS] and right into DCMS,” he said. “It’s a huge benefit for our community as well. There will be a nice, big roadway to connect traffic from Highway 54 to 603, instead of having to drive around that area or take the bypass. It’s a more direct route.”
Robbins also hopes residents of the Downs neighborhood will be happy about the Fairview Drive extension as it will offset traffic that drives throughout the neighborhood to connect to roadways on the other side.
“It should create less through traffic through their neighborhood by extending the road this way,” he said.
