The $4 billion Nucor steel mill now under construction in Mason County borders the Ohio River on one side, and West Virginia Highway Route 2 on the other. Desperately needed upgrades for the two lane river road have been the source of long running discussion and confusion.
The rumble of construction trucks begins early in the morning on Route 2. That rumble is mixed in with the ever present pounding of patching crews trying to keep the section of busy highway that runs from Huntington to Point Pleasant driveable. Mason County Commission President Rick Handley said the mostly two lane stretch of road remains dangerous as well as busy.
“The road is really rough right now,” Handley said. “It’s just where they’ve hauled rock up and down that road for the past year and a half or so. We just put a windshield in for my daughter’s car, because she had a rock hit it. We’ve had a lot of really, really bad potholes on Route 2 again. We have a tremendous amount of traffic, and it’s just causing a lot of problems right now.”
A study of West Virginia’s deadliest roadways, released by the Barber Law Firm, analyzed data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration from 2018 to 2022 and found Route 2 atop the list with an average of seven fatalities per year.
Cabell County commissioner John Mandt Jr, said the highway has multiple safety challenges.
“We have first responders traveling, EMS coming to the hospitals in Huntington from Route 2 from Mason County,” Mandt said. “And you have school buses. Sometimes you can’t pass on Route 2. So there’s a lot of things to address.”
The roadway section that runs along the Nucor plant site has been widened with an extra lane and shoulder areas. But most of the near 40 mile stretch in question is two lanes with no berm.
After Nucor announced its massive Mason County construction plans, Mason County Commissioner Chris Johnson said a state study noted a near 40 mile Route 2 expansion.
“The study that they had done, essentially, was a four lane study, and it had pushed it back a little ways towards the hill,” he said. “That idea seems a little far-fetched right now.”
That four lane plan was scrapped for feasibility and expense.Mandt said he is among many pushing for a Route 2 plan B.
“Plan B might be isolated sections where you can put in some turn lanes, some third lanes, some passing lanes,” Mandt said.
Commissioners from both counties say they are working with the new 2025 WV Department of Transportation (DOT) leadership on the safest Route 2 upgrades. Johnson said those discussions come with a caveat.
“What we need is a safe and efficient road from Point Pleasant to Huntington,” Johnson said. “My thoughts are something along the lines of an expressway, two lane expressway, enough room on both sides of the roads to avoid potential hazards that may come up. The feedback that we’re receiving from Secretary Rumbaugh is the ‘Return on Investment.’”
Brent Walker with the Public Relations Division of the West Virginia Department of Transportation said all Route 2 upgrade plans are fluid right now, with an emphasis on safety and efficiency. He said there is a state demand for ROI, or return on the investment, of certain road upgrades.
“We want to make sure that we’re not building roads to nowhere,” Walker said. “That any upgrades or any work that we do around, let’s say, an economic development, certainly the size of this one, that it’s to create jobs.”
Nucor has in the neighborhood of 15 hundred construction workers now on site, with 800 full-time jobs when the plant is finished. Mandt said the Route 2 ROI will be substantial.
“When you look at families that move here, they buy houses, they buy automobiles, they shop, they pay taxes,” He said. “When you add all that into the ingredients of what we’re doing and the equation, it’s going to have a huge investment.”
Walker said the initial plan on the Route 2 upgrade from Huntington to Point Pleasant features keeping, but bolstering, the two lane road.
“We’re going to be having various milling projects where we’re taking out the existing or taking out some of the existing roadway and putting in thick overlays to be able to handle, of course, some of the weight of the trucks,” Walker said. “And so, yeah, we’ve got projects from ‘26 to 2028 that will be milling and thick overlay projects.”
However, Walker also said with this section of Route 2 upgrade, everything is fluid and everything is still on the table.
