By Brenna R. Kelly
Enquirer staff writer

BURLINGTON - Imagine driving from Oakbrook to Turfway Park without traveling on Ky. 18 or Houston Road - avoiding the seven traffic lights and numerous backups.

A new road will link Oakbrook Road to Turfway Road, creating a direct line from the Oakbrook subdivisions, where nearly 8,000 people live, to Houston Road's busy retail corridor.

Construction on the road, which will be built in three parts, will begin next year.

The first section will be from Ky. 18 just east of Limaburg Creek Road to Zig Zag Road. The county will build that section and has asked the state to continue the road east to Turfway, but that's not likely to happen soon.

"Right now, it's very unpredictable with not even having a state budget," said Gary Moore, Boone County judge-executive. "We are hopeful but not very optimistic."

The project was added to the state Transportation Cabinet's $9 billion worth of unfunded road projects in Northern Kentucky. There's no guarantee that section of the road will get funded.

By 2020, planners expect traffic on Ky. 18 will reach 70,000 vehicles a day. But the new road would cut that estimate by 24 percent.

Boone County will spend $3.7 million to build the first section, which could be open by late fall 2005, said County Administrator Jim Parsons.

About $2.5 million of that came from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and $1.2 million was from Citi Corp in Florence.

The second section - from Zig Zag to Turfway - would cost about $10 million, said Mike Bezold, of the state transportation cabinet.

The county estimates the second section, which cuts across airport property, will cost about $4 million.

The third section of the project is to relocate a portion of Oakbrook Road to meet up with the new road at Ky. 18. Construction costs and who would build that section have not been decided.

E-mail bkelly@enquirer.com