Roads to Prosperity Story Archives - Page 2 of 3 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Justice, Officials Cut Ribbon On I-70 Bridges Project In Wheeling

The $215 million project rehabilitated or replaced a total of 26 bridge structures on one of the oldest sections of interstate highway in West Virginia.

Gov. Jim Justice joined state and local officials to cut the ribbon Friday on a three-year bridge project in Wheeling.

The $215 million project rehabilitated or replaced a total of 26 bridge structures on one of the oldest sections of interstate highway in West Virginia.

Friday’s ribbon cutting took place with the Fort Henry Bridge over the Ohio River main channel in the background.

The Fort Henry Bridge was built in 1955 and carries 55,000 vehicles a day, according to the West Virginia Division of Highways.

At times, Interstate 70 was closed in both directions to accommodate the construction.

The project was part of Justice’s signature Roads to Prosperity initiative.

Funding Granted For Berkeley Springs Bypass Road Completion

The funding was officially awarded to A.L.L. Construction Dec. 21, totaling nearly $35 million.

More funding from the state is going towards the completion of the Berkeley Springs Bypass in Morgan County.

The funding was officially awarded to A.L.L. Construction Dec. 21, totaling nearly $35 million.

The road’s construction is part of Gov. Jim Justice’s Roads to Prosperity program. The bypass is designed to divert traffic congestion on U.S. Route 522, which goes through Berkeley Springs. An initial $60 million in funding for the project was granted in 2020.

A 2020 release from Justice’s office says Route 522 sees 13,400 vehicles per day, with approximately 30 percent of those vehicles being trucks. The other purpose of the bypass is to make downtown Berkeley Springs safer for other drivers and pedestrians.

The project will see three-and-a-half miles of a four-lane highway completed in Morgan County from Winchester Grade Road south of Berkeley Springs to state Route 9. This round of funding will connect the northern section of the bypass with Route 522 north of the town, adding two bridges and a connecting road to War Memorial Hospital along the way.

The completed project will include three bridges, three at-grade intersections and a diamond interchange on Route 9.

World War I Memorial Bridge Opens To Traffic At Nitro

Justice led a caravan of cars west across the new span Friday, with all westbound traffic to be shifted to the bridge on Saturday.

Gov. Jim Justice and other state officials dedicated the new Interstate 64 bridge at Nitro Friday.

“Y’all didn’t cheer loud enough for that,” Justice said, announcing the official name of the Nitro World War I Memorial Bridge over the Kanawha River. “Now come on, one more time, really loud.”

It will replace the Donald M. Legg Memorial Bridge, which opened in 1963. After all traffic is shifted to the new bridge in the next couple of weeks, the old span will be dismantled and recycled. A new bridge will be constructed in its place to carry eastbound traffic only.

Justice led a caravan of cars west across the new span Friday, with all westbound traffic to be shifted to the bridge on Saturday.

The bridges are part of a $225 million project to widen I-64 to six lanes from four between Nitro and Scott Depot. The project is part of Justice’s Roads to Prosperity, now a five-year effort to upgrade the state’s highways.

New Bridge Connecting Nitro To St. Albans Set To Open

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.

Roads To Prosperity Program Marks Five Years Of Road, Infrastructure Projects

Friday marked the fifth anniversary of the launch of the state’s Roads to Prosperity program.

The state passed the program at Gov. Jim Justice’s urging in 2017, selling $1.6 billion in bonds to upgrade state infrastructure. Since then, the program has funded more than 1,000 projects of varying scale. These projects have mostly focused on improving state roads, with the state Department of Transportation (DOT) heading most of them.

“I think it’s exceeded everybody’s expectations,” Commissioner of Highways Jimmy Wriston said. “We went from a more than $500 million shortfall in 2017 to a $1.2 billion surplus just this past year. Plus, we also have a great benefit of counteracting the decades and decades of underinvestment in our roadways.”

Wriston said the program is a massive undertaking, citing that nearly 94 percent of all roads are maintained by the state.

Larger projects include the Coalfields Expressway, which connects southern West Virginia to western Virginia, a six-lane widening of the West Virginia Turnpike around Beckley and Corridor H connecting Grant, Tucker and Hardy counties to northwestern Virginia.

Bridge projects, including the Donald M. Legg Memorial Bridge on Interstate 64 and reconstruction of multiple bridges along Interstate 70, have been managed as well.

Wriston said the tackling of larger projects also gave the DOT room to handle smaller, secondary roads through the Secondary Roads Maintenance Initiative.

“There’s a lot of trickle down there, not just with the construction of the road projects, but the folks that supply the road materials, the folks that actually work out there and bought slushies and lunches, eating at restaurants while they’re working. It’s all been working together,” Wriston said.

The DOT website has an estimated statistic of 48,000 jobs created as a result of the project.

W.Va. Department of Transportation Creates Interactive, Online Map of Road Projects

The West Virginia Department of Transportation has released an all-new, interactive, online map that shows every current road project across the state — for both primary and secondary roads.

The map provides real-time statistics on how much road work has been completed across a variety of categories, including Gov. Jim Justice’s Secondary Roads Maintenance initiative and the Roads to Prosperity program.

Secretary of Transportation Byrd White said in a press release the map was created in an effort to be transparent with the public about road issues.

“Under the leadership of Governor Justice, we have stated that we were going to provide a way to show the public, in a transparent way, the progress we have made in a short amount of time,” White said. “This interactive website allows everyone who’s interested to see what’s been done and what will be done, before the end of the year. It’s pretty remarkable.”

See below for a tutorial on how to use the map:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j3hkB3X5Mmk

Road problems, specifically on secondary roads, were the focus of heated discussion and contention during the regular 2019 state legislative session. Since then, the West Virginia DOT has released lists for each county showing all secondary road projects.

The new interactive map displays all road projects for 2019, including projects that are underway, those about to be started, and those completed.

To date, more than 30,000 miles of projects have been completed, including ditching, patching, paving and road stabilization.