In 1954, Dr. William C. Hambley was appointed to the first Pikeville Planning Commission, which identified five main infrastructure priorities: moving the railroad away from downtown, combining U.S. 23, U.S. 119, U.S. 460, and Kentucky 80 into one four-lane highway through the city, rechanneling the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River outside downtown, eliminating substandard housing on Kentucky Avenue, High Street, and at the base of Peach Orchard Mountain, and providing access to or creating flat land for public and private development. In 1960, Hambley was elected mayor and served through 1989. In 1963, Pikeville received a 12.5 million dollar Urban Renewal grant from HUD, which established the Model Cities Program, and a 38,000 dollar federal grant for a railroad relocation feasibility study. In 1965, the Appalachian Regional Commission was created by the United States Congress and began planning a corridor highway system through the 13 Appalachian states. One option from Pikeville's 1963 feasibility study was combined with the commission's highway plan for Eastern Kentucky, creating the Cut-Thru Project. On November 26, 1973, the excavation phase began at a cost of 17.25 million dollars, and nearly 13 million cubic yards of rock were blasted from Peach Orchard Mountain to carve the channel that would become the future route of the railroad, river, and highways.