Roads and Transportation Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Improving W.Va. Infrastructure With Taiwanese Technology

A trade delegation just got back from opening a West Virginia Trade Office in Taiwan. The office will serve as a hub for promoting the state as a prime location for Taiwanese investment and assisting West Virginia businesses with exporting their products and services to Taiwan.

One delegation member, however, said he learned much more than increasing global markets.

Del. Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, chairs the House Committee on Technology and Infrastructure. He said he is already back in touch with the Taiwan Foreign Ministry after viewing ways to improve West Virginia’s infrastructure challenges.

Linville said the mountainous island nation had an incredible number of high-end road and rail tunnels.

“They’re a very mountainous country, like our state,” Linville said. ”Certainly they build roads over and above their mountains and those sorts of things. But both for rail service, and for traditional vehicle service, they had an incredible number of tunnels and seem to have really mastered that art.”

Linville also said broadband and cell service was everywhere in Taiwan, strong even in the most remote areas.

“Folks were able to take pictures and share them with friends and those sorts of things,” Linville said. “You could tell that all the people were connected. It didn’t matter if someone had an AT&T phone or a Verizon phone or something like that. We all had service while we were over there just about everywhere. So how is it that they were able to accomplish that?”

Linville said he believes Taiwan’s technology on tunnel building and broadband connectivity is adaptable to the Mountain State, and he is working on that adaptation.

Justice Celebrates Groundbreaking of Wheeling Road Improvement Project

Gov. Jim Justice was in downtown Wheeling Friday morning to break ground on the multimillion dollar road improvement Wheeling Streetscape Project Friday.

Gov. Jim Justice and BabyDog were on the corner of Market and 10th Streets in downtown Wheeling Friday morning to break ground on the multimillion dollar road improvement project Wheeling Streetscape Project Friday.

The approximately $32 million project will add ADA-compliant curb cuts, widened sidewalks, and decorative traffic signals, plants and trees.

“This is an incredible community,” Justice said. “But from the first day that I drove in here, I thought if we don’t get this fixed, who in the world is going to want to come to the town of Wheeling?”

Justice was joined by Transportation Secretary Jimmy Wriston and Wheeling Mayor Glenn Elliott, who called the project the most exciting thing to happen to the city in 20 years.

“When it’s done it’s going to be the most pedestrian friendly downtown of the state, I’m convinced of that,” Elliott said. “It’s gonna be really a great flagship for the state of West Virginia, for people to get off I-70 and come drive through it. So we’re thrilled.”

The Wheeling Streetscape Project is expected to be completed in 2024.

A design shows some of the planned improvements to downtown Wheeling’s streets.

Delegates Take First Look at Road Tax Bill

On the final day to approve bills in the chamber, Senators passed out Senate Bill 555. The bill adds a trigger to increase the state’s gasoline tax by 3 cents when the wholesale price of a gallon drops below $2, but also generates dollars for the state road fund through increased taxes and fees.

The bill made its first appearance in a House Finance Subcommittee Friday.

There were seven members on the subcommittee. Initially, the bill only included the gasoline tax increase, but before leaving the Senate it was amended. Senators included increases to Division of Motor Vehicle fees and an increase to the tax on purchasing a vehicle.

House Finance Chairman Eric Nelson says most of the new revenue would be committed to road maintenance and construction projects.

“Collectively, all of these, so called revenue measures would generate, according to numbers, about $300 million dollars and go into roads,” Nelson said.

All seven members in the House Finance Subcommittee expressed concern with the bill, including Delegate Carol Miller, a Republican from Cabell County.

“I started reading this bill [Thursday] night, at approximately 7:30 p.m., and the more I read, the more I circled, the more I underlined, the more I flagged, and it just went times three, times eight, times negative one percent, up one percent, and, I mean, I stopped flagging after about fifteen, and I just think that there’s too much in this bill to be, without us really understanding the true dollar amount of how many fees we’re gonna put on people,” Miller said.

The subcommittee did vote to move the bill to the full committee, but suggested Chairman Nelson collect more information about the impact of the provisions before putting it to a vote.

“I think any revenue measure is gonna have a word of caution with it,” House Finance Chairman Nelson said, “rightfully so in our tough times, but at the same time, we have a big need as it relates to road maintenance and road construction, and so we’ve got to put everything on the table, and I think that’s what we have in front of us. The reason for the subcommittee is to give it a little extra time, then they can report back to the big committee so that we aren’t rushed into certain decisions.”

Nelson anticipates the full Finance Committee will take up Senate Bill 555 Monday.