The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Local News

March 2, 2009

Senators criticize Z-Way project funding

Mannix Porterfield

CHARLESTON — Two Senate leaders Monday decried a decision to pump $32 million in federal stimulus dollars into a Beckley traffic project, saying the West Virginia Turnpike should be repaired instead to keep an anticipated toll hike from going too high.

Majority Leader Truman Chafin specifically criticized money earmarked for the East Beckley Bypass project while the Turnpike is crumbling.

Just recently, Chafin pointed out, the Turnpike provided a special, two-day media tour to demonstrate its “deplorable condition.”

Chafin found it puzzling — and troubling — that the Division of Highways set aside $32 million for the Beckley project and doesn’t spend one dollar to “keep the tolls at least $1.50.”

A decision is expected soon by the West Virginia Parkways Authority on a request to hike tolls, the first such increase since 1981.

The West Virginia Parkways Authority meets Thursday after agreeing last month to proceed with engineering and other studies to determine road and financial needs. Any toll increase would have to be put before the public in a series of hearings in the four counties through which the Princeton-to-Charleston road runs — Mercer, Raleigh, Fayette and Kanawha.

Chafin’s criticism came just before the Senate suspended its rules and passed SB403, allowing a $40 million highway appropriation that Finance Chairman Walt Helmick described as a match for anticipated federal dollars.

Some of the money will require the state to put up its customary share in an 80-20 allocation, Helmick said.

“So what do we do when we get a gift?” asked Chafin, D-Mingo, referring to the stimulus dollars.

“Thirty-two million dollars to one project in Beckley and let the whole 88-mile Turnpike just sit there. It seems to me they would want to use a little bit of that money to make repairs and use the rest of it on King Coal Highway, Coalfields Expressway or the East Beckley Bypass.”

Now, he said, the call will go out that a fare increase is needed on the Turnpike, “and it’s an Interstate.”

Chafin said the DOH needs to re-examine its priorities.

“We don’t need any of those kind of toll increases when we have this kind of money coming from Washington when we could make some repairs,” the majority leader said.

On the same page with that, Minority Leader Don Caruth, R-Mercer, said he wondered, likewise, why the Turnpike can’t be repaired and money also set aside for King Coal and Coalfields Expressway.

Caruth said the Legislature has been barred from making any decisions on how to spend the stimulus package, which includes some $211 million for road work.

“I’m pretty miffed about that,” the GOP leader said.

“And we’ve been really shut out in the southern part of West Virginia.”

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com

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