Louisville's "Can Opener": Speed School’s Notorious Nextdoor Neighbor Faces Its Busiest Season Yet

By Michael Phillips

The viaduct as accessed by southbound traffic

Tucked at the intersection of Third Street and Eastern Parkway, just steps from the Vogt Building on Speed School’s side of Belknap campus, sits one of Louisville’s most notorious spectacles. The Third Street viaduct, a railroad bridge owned by CSX and Norfolk Southern, carries trains overhead while allowing vehicle traffic to pass below at clearances of 11 feet 8 inches from the north and exactly 12 feet from the south. On paper, it’s a straightforward piece of urban traffic infrastructure. In practice, it has earned a nickname that’s only grown more familiar to the broader Louisville community: the “can opener.”

Semi-trucks ignoring posted height restriction signs attempt to pass beneath the viaduct and have their rooftops peeled back on impact. It’s a phenomenon that traffic engineers and city planners have long monitored but have had difficulty in solving. Now, with I-65 corridor closed for repairs expected to run through June and July, the can opener is having its busiest season on record.

“Normally we were seeing about two bridge strikes on average each month,” said Brandon Shelley, a part-time lecturer of civil engineering at Speed School and a Traffic Systems Operations Specialist with the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet. “As you know, last week we got into double digits in the first three days of the I-65 closure.”

The surge isn’t random. With I-65 out of commission, GPS navigation apps began routing semi-trucks through the city’s surface streets in an effort to keep drivers as close to the interstate corridor as possible. “A lot of these trucks were trying to access I-65,” Shelley explained, noting strikes have spiked from both entry points. “We’ve had bridge strikes there at Third and Eastern, which are southbound,” he continued. “But we’ve also had quite a few northbound at Third and Winkler.” He added that the geometry of the surrounding intersections acts as a natural filter, and trucks that make it to the viaduct have already cleared what he calls “the gates.”

Making the problem worse, the navigation apps themselves have been slow to update. “We found out late last week that the navigation apps have not been correctly updating themselves,” Shelley said, “essentially trying to keep you as close to the I-65 corridor as possible and not really look at more of a longer street detour route.” Drivers who were stopped and questioned confirmed it: “They said, ‘Well, our apps are still directing us to use the particular route.’ That’s something the KYTC is working with our app providers on.”

It’s not that the area lacks warnings. As part of a 2009–2010 corridor redesign, KYTC installed overhead variable message systems on westbound Eastern Parkway and southbound Third Street that activate when an overheight vehicle is detected, instructing drivers to turn before reaching the bridge. Static signage was overhauled again in 2024. As the planned I-65 closure approached, KYTC added more warnings.

“As of last Monday before we added any additional measures,” he said, “there were a total of 29 signs that were there basically at Eastern and Third,” Shelley said. “And you know, we can continue going in this direction. But obviously it’s not really working.”

Research may explain why. In partnership with the Kentucky Transportation Center, a research consortium of which U of L is a member, KYTC has found that the message-based signs are not resonating with their audience. “A lot of that research is showing that with most truck drivers today, English is not their primary language,” Shelley noted. “In fact, we’re seeing a lot of the drivers, they either speak Spanish or Farsi, and so English in our sign may not be something that really translates quickly to them that there is a low clearance.”

The solution being explored under a Louisville Metro initiative called viaSmart focuses on symbol-based signage, like images of an oversized truck approaching a bridge, rather than text. “We’re looking at using symbol signs so that we can show an image of a truck that is obviously too tall approaching that bridge, and looking at what types of colors are appropriate,” Shelley said. That project, currently in permit review, would also address flooding warnings at viaducts across Jefferson County.

As for more permanent structural fixes, some commonly suggested options are not as viable when investigated more thoroughly. Lowering the roadway is effectively off the table because a massive combined sewer holding tank sits directly beneath the viaduct. “If we were to go in and try to lower the road, we would have to completely redo that entire system,” Shelley explained. “When you get into modifying a combined sewer system, you get into all kinds of environmental factors and processes that can have far-reaching effects.” The costs would put such a project deep into the double-digit millions.

Raising the railroad bridge is theoretically possible but similarly expensive. “When you work with railroads, if you’re wanting to try to increase elevation, you have to go back in and adjust the track at least one mile in either direction,” Shelley said.

Additionally, the structural health of the bridge itself warrants more attention. “There is certainly concern amongst both the transportation cabinet as well as CSX and Norfolk Southern about these strikes,” Shelley said. “When we have repeat occurrences like this, with a frequency like this, then the transportation cabinet is also put on notice.” Though KYTC doesn’t routinely inspect the privately-owned structure, Shelley confirmed that’s being reconsidered: “That is something that’s being discussed right now, especially if we do not see a decrease in the frequency of these strikes.”