A new bridge connecting Nitro and St. Albans through Interstate 64 is opening Friday.
A new bridge connecting Nitro and St. Albans through Interstate 64 is opening Friday.
The Nitro World War I Memorial Bridge construction is part of a $224 million project widening Interstate 64 through the Route 35 interchange in Putnam County. The project widens nearly four miles of the interstate to six lanes of traffic, expanding to eight lanes at the Nitro and St. Albans interchanges.
It’s part of the state’s Roads to Prosperity infrastructure program, which recently celebrated its five year anniversary. Officials broke ground on construction for this particular project in April of last year.
It’s set to move exit traffic from St. Albans starting Friday, with westbound traffic following the next day. Eastbound traffic is also scheduled to be switched from the Donald M. Legg Memorial Bridge to the new bridge within the next two weeks.
The Donald M. Legg Memorial Bridge is also scheduled to be replaced, with the existing bridge scheduled to be demolished once eastbound traffic is fully switched.
A grand opening ceremony for the new bridge over the Kanawha River is set to be live streamed on YouTube, Twitter and Facebook Friday, Oct. 28 at 2:30 p.m.
As of when construction began in 2021, the entire I-64 widening project is slated to be completed in 2024.
Bridge rehabilitation, unfinished corridors and electric charging stations highlight how the West Virginia Department of Transportation plans to use some of the federal infrastructure funds.
Bridge rehabilitation, unfinished corridors and electric charging stations highlight how the West Virginia Department of Transportation plans to use some of the federal infrastructure funds.
Transportation Secretary Jimmy Wriston explained to the Joint Legislative Oversight Commission on Department of Transportation Accountability how the state will spend some of the $3 billion coming from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act at a legislative interim meeting Sunday.
Wriston said more than $45 million will help set up electric car charging stations along the interstates. He said this could be a public/private partnership project.
Wriston also allotted $548 million for bridge rehabilitation. Funding includes both state and non-state owned bridges. Wriston said while state-owned bridge rehabilitation funding designates an 80-20 percent federal/state split, non-state owned bridge projects will be 100 percent funded by federal dollars.
“We think we can really leverage that and make a big difference for a lot of municipalities,” Wriston said. “Especially since they won’t have to come up with a match to replace, repair or rehabilitate some of these structures.”
Wriston said $200 million will be dedicated to finishing the Corridor H project, a four lane highway that runs from Weston to the Virginia line, connecting with I-81.
“I think it’s safe to say regarding the end of construction on Corridor H, that the end is in sight,” Wriston said.
Wriston said other road building priorities include the King Coal Highway, a 95-mile stretch through McDowell, Mercer, Mingo, Wyoming, and Wayne counties, and the Coalfields Expressway, a multi-lane highway connecting the West Virginia Turnpike at Beckley with U.S. 23 at Slate, Va.
Wrtiston told commission members that purchasing construction equipment looms as one of the Department of Transportation’s biggest challenges. He said inflation and supply chain issues have stymied availability. For example, Wriston said an order for 120 new trucks is not expected to be delivered until August, 2023. He worries that challenges in obtaining new equipment and parts may get worse before they get better.
“We will slide back as a department if something doesn’t change soon.” Wriston said.
Congress and President Joe Biden have committed to spending big dollars on roads and bridges. However, Biden’s recent visit to Pittsburgh to discuss the infrastructure program was punctuated by the collapse of the Fern Hollow Bridge. Since then, residents of West Virginia have been spurred to ask questions about their own bridges.
A recent analysis of National Bridge Inventory data shows that 7 percent of all bridges in the U.S. received a poor rating. West Virginia has the highest rate in the country, with more than 20 percent of the state’s bridges considered structurally deficient or in poor condition.
On January 28, the day theFern Hollow Bridge collapsed, Morgantown resident Stephanie Shepard began researching the conditions of bridges in her area.
“I’m from this area originally, I’ve been over that bridge many times. So I started to wonder if there were other bridges that were at risk in the area, or if that was the only one,” Shepard said.
Like a lot of people looking for answers in the aftermath of the collapse, Shepard heard that the Fern Hollow Bridge had been rated poor on the NBI, and she quickly searched the database for poor bridges in Monongalia County.
The database, compiled by the Federal Highway Administration, has information on all bridges and tunnels in the United States. During her research, Shepard discovered it had been created largely as a response to the collapse of the Silver Bridge in Point Pleasant, W. Va. in 1967, a key event in the Mothman legend.
Shepard found that more than one out of every six bridges in Monongalia County were rated poor, like the bridge that had collapsed in Pittsburgh.
“I wanted that knowledge to be available to people,” Shepard said.
Chris Schulz
/
West Virginia Public Broadcasting
A screenshot of the interactive map of bridges rated “poor” in Monongalia County created by Stephanie Shepard.
Shepard and others like her across the country have cause for concern, and have started asking questions about the nation’s infrastructure.
The West Virginia Department of Transportation did not respond to requests for comment, but in just the last few months, politicians have started answering.
Governor Jim Justice’s Roads to Prosperity program has identified more than 150 bridges it will be working on with the program’s projected $2.7 billion. The state is also expected to receive over $500 million for bridge repairs alone from the federal infrastructure bill over the next five years.
These planned expenditures come at a time when more attention is being placed on the nation’s aging infrastructure.
“It is not uncommon to have such distress in these bridges, especially with those bridges that have been in service 50 years plus,” said Hota GangaRao, Ph.D. He is the director of the Construction Facilities Center at West Virginia University, and has been studying and helping to build bridges in the state since 1968, almost as long as the NBI has existed.
“Believe it or not, we have about 50 percent of our bridges that have a service life of 50 years plus in the country today. So we have a major issue that needs addressing,” GangaRao said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is still investigating the causes of January’s collapse, but structural failure due to faulty bridge parts is rare in the United States. More commonly, bridges fail due to external factors such as flooding, overloading, or collisions by boats.
So while concern is warranted, and much work is needed, GangaRao says the bridges Shepard and others have identified are stable.
“Poor rating does not mean that it will collapse tomorrow or tonight, ” he said.
Age is a major factor, but more than anything is the quality of the bridge’s deck. That’s the surface of the bridge, made of concrete or asphalt, that you walk and drive over. If the deck is in good condition, GangaRao says it will protect the larger structure from the corrosive effects of road salts and other chemicals.
GangaRao points out that the Fern Hollow Bridge’s decking was almost 10 years past its planned service period.
For community members like Shepard interested in taking action to protect and improve local bridges, GangaRao suggests reporting any visible issues to the appropriate authorities.
“I’m not at all saying one should take anything into their hands. Alerting the appropriate authorities will help a great deal,” he said.
Another thing he recommends is advocating for local bridges to be washed regularly.
But that still leaves questions for Shepard.
“I have to wonder why they’re still in poor condition, and why they haven’t been repaired,” Shepard said.
One of West Virginia’s most enduring symbols is a bridge: the New River Gorge Bridge. And while that great arch might get most of the world’s attention, the more than 7,000 other bridges in the state need some attention as well.
West Virginia is slated to receive more than $500 million to repair and upgrade bridges across the state, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
Federal officials announced last week that West Virginia would receive the funding over the next five years, starting with $101.3 million for fiscal year 2022, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
The state has one of the highest percentage of structurally deficient bridges in the country, according to an analysis of federal data by the American Road and Transportation Builders Association. The number of West Virginia bridges that need repair increased from 1,222 in 2016 to 1,545 in 2020, the organization found.
The funding comes from a bipartisan infrastructure law passed by Congress in November.
A “Bridge to Nowhere” in southern West Virginia will have a destination in a few years.
Gov. Jim Justice held a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday, May 1, for the start of work on a 3.8-mile addition to the King Coal Highway. The addition will make use of a bridge that was built a decade ago and dubbed the “Bridge to Nowhere” because the road stopped at the end of it.
The governor’s office says the project will give motorists easier access to the Mercer County Airport.
Justice says they’re “going to turn this into the ‘Bridge to Somewhere’ and that somewhere is going to be your airport.”
First, crews must cut through a mountain between the bridge and airport.
The $57.5 million project is being funded through West Virginia Turnpike Authority bonds. It’s expected to be completed by November 2021.
Gov. Jim Justice says motorists can use a website to view ongoing West Virginia road and bridge construction projects.
Justice said Monday the website Drive Forward WV lists details on 600 construction projects across the state.
Voters last October passed a referendum for the state to sell $1.6 billion in bonds to finance state road repairs and construction. The Legislature in December authorized issuing up to $800 million in bonds through this summer followed by another $800 million in the next three years.
Justice also announced the formation of a team that will respond to safety and other concerns about state roads. Concerns can be phoned to 1-833-WV-ROADS. He says the Division of Highways will respond to issues and make a determination within a week.
