State Route 460 (US 64) Somerville Beltway

Overview

The project on State Route 460 (US 64) consists of a new transportation corridor, or beltway facility, around the Town of Somerville in Fayette County. The purpose of the new highway, known as the Somerville Beltway, is to provide a facility that meets present and future traffic demands and provides motorists with improved connections to other major highways, such as SR 15 (US 64) and SR 76. The beltway will be given the designation of SR 460 (US 64), and will be funded and constructed in phases.

With the completion of the Environmental Assessment (EA) in September 2008, the Department is moving forward with the design and construction of the southern leg of the beltway. This portion of the project begins near Jones Creek on US 64, west of Somerville, and ends near Bennetts Creek on US 64, east of Somerville, crossing SR 76 near the landfill and Justice Center.

Proposed Design

The proposed design of the new facility is a four-lane highway, with two lanes handling traffic each direction, separated by a grass median. The lanes will be 12-feet wide, with a 6-foot inside shoulder (next to the median), and a 12-foot shoulder on the outside. You can see a rendering of this typical cross-section below.

Click on image below for a larger PDF version.

The Somerville Beltway will be a controlled-access facility, meaning there will only be access at designated interchanges and intersections along the highway. Median cross-overs will be provided along the route to allow vehicles the ability to turn around.

There will be four intersections along this section of new highway: US 64 west of Somerville, SR 76, Jernigan Road, and US 64 east of Somerville. The highway will intersect with Jernigan Road at-grade, with turn lanes and a median cross-over at that location. The intersections with US 64 and SR 76 will be grade-separated interchanges.

Because the proposed construction is on the southern leg of the larger Beltway project, the interchanges at the ends of the project (US 64 west and east of Somerville) will be constructed in a way to be compatible with future continuation of the route to the north. Therefore, the configuration to be constructed at these two interchanges will be a partial cloverleaf. 

At the interchange with SR 76, a Single-Point Urban Interchange (SPUI) is proposed. In this configuration, traffic enters and exits the freeway (beltway in this case) the same way as a typical diamond interchange. The difference is in the intersection of the ramps with the crossing road (SR 76). Instead of two separate intersections, the SPUI turns the ramps toward the center for one single intersection.