Perry County, Tell City get transportation funding in $127 million package

State transportation leaders are committing more than $127 million to projects in southwestern Indiana and the Ohio River corridor, including $1.5 million for Perry County and $995,349 for Tell City. The package also sets aside $116 million for a bridge replacement over the Ohio River one mile south of Cairo, a crossing that shapes freight movement, school transportation and emergency access across the region.

The funding notice does not spell out the exact Perry County or Tell City projects, but the local dollars put both governments inside a larger state infrastructure push. In a county and river city built around a limited set of roads and commuter routes, even a modest allocation can mean safer intersections, drainage fixes, bridge work or resurfacing that keeps workers, school buses and ambulances moving.

The biggest piece of the package is the Ohio River bridge replacement. Kentucky Transportation Cabinet materials say the existing crossing carries U.S. 51, U.S. 60 and U.S. 62 traffic between Wickliffe, Kentucky, and Cairo, Illinois, and that the project is meant to improve cross-river mobility. Those same materials cite narrow lane widths, no shoulders and a tight curve on the bridge and its approaches as the problems the new span is intended to solve.

That bridge will not become a quick fix. The project began as a long-range planning study in 2013, moved into a mussel survey process in 2023 and reached geotechnical drilling in 2025 so engineers could plan piers and abutments. Any visible traffic impacts are still likely to come later, after design, environmental review, permitting and construction staging are finished.

Tell City has already lived through that pace on a smaller scale. Its River Road project was completed after nearly 20 years, and the city’s comprehensive plan, adopted April 18, 2022 and funded by the Office of Community and Rural Affairs, reflects years of planning under Mayor Chris Cail. The new state package keeps Perry County and Tell City in the transportation funding stream, but the Ohio River bridge remains the project that will matter most for regional reliability once the work finally reaches the ground.