A large crowd gathered Tuesday evening at the Russellville High School cafeteria to hear about plans to complete the Russellville Southern Bypass.

Several exhibits were set up around the room to allow people to see just what the project would be like.

Joe Plunk of the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) gave a short presentation as an overview.

He said that the project has been stalled for several years due to a lack of state funding, but that looks like it will be changing.

“This project now has reliable funding,” Plunk said. “This project has support and is moving forward.”

The first section of the Southern Bypass was completed last year when the road connecting 68-80 to Franklin Road was constructed.

The next and final stage will connect the bypass at Franklin Road to Nashville Road and then complete the loop around the city at Clarksville Road.

The new section of road will be 4.6 miles long and will cost approximately $15.6 million in construction costs alone.

Plunk said that about $3.1 million has been allocated to purchase the land for the road and an additional $3 million will be needed to pay for moving utilities that will be affected by construction of the new roadway.

The KYTC plans to begin purchasing land for the project next year.

“And then the best case scenario would be for us to begin construction in 2015 and probably have to open to traffic in 2016,” Plunk said.

The main reason for completing the bypass around Russellville will be to stop large transfer trucks from going through downtown Russellville.

“Nashville Road and Ninth Street has always been a troublesome intersection,” Plunk said. “This is going to pull the truck traffic out of the city center.”