LISTEN: Matt Pond PA Has The Mountain Stage Song Of The Week
On this week's premiere broadcast of Mountain Stage, guest host David Mayfield welcomes Brother Elsey, Jenny Owen You...
Continue Reading Take Me to More NewsGov. Jim Justice, the West Virginia Department of Transportation and local officials celebrated the next phase of the Coalfields Expressway Monday. The road is expected to help with economic development and connect parts of mountainous southern West Virginia .
The bid for the construction of the next five miles of the road to Welch was awarded to Bizzack Construction of Lexington, Kentucky in May. The project is part of Justice’s Roads To Prosperity program. The same program helped to complete the road from Slab Fork to Mullens in Wyoming County, which opened in 2020.
The planned route continues into southwest Virginia through Grundy and will end at Pound, Virginia connecting with U.S. 23.
The four lane highway broke ground back in 2000 but the idea for the road goes back to the late 1960’s, when the road was called the Beckley to Grundy Road. The infrastructure project is more than 27 years in the making.
More than 15 years ago a Marshall University study conducted a study that found that the Coalfields Expressway would help create a better economy for the region.