At first glance, 2.6 percent doesn’t seem like much.
But as state Delegate Linda Goode Phillips, D-Wyoming, remarked last week, “If we continue to take little steps, baby steps, this is going to happen.”
Highway construction in mountainous southern West Virginia does indeed come in small steps, so the announcement that 1.7 miles of the Coalfields Expressway, or 2.6 percent of the total 65-mile length of the West Virginia portion of highway that will stretch from Beckley south to the Virginia border, will be bid next month was good news for the region.
“That’s another step in the right direction,” Coalfields Expressway Authority chairman Mike Goode said. “We’ll just have to keep plugging along, even if we have to build this road a mile at a time.”
This time, it will be 1.7 miles, taking the new four-lane highway from west of Helen to Allen Creek in Raleigh County. The cost will be determined when bids come in, but officials say the state Division of Highways has about $30 million available for the highway, money that originated in congressional appropriations bills from Sen. Robert C. Byrd and Rep. Nick Rahall.
Currently, 6.9 miles of the expressway are open to traffic in Raleigh County, and construction has also begun in McDowell County at the site of a new federal prison that is expected to open next year.
And to add to the good news: 17 additional miles are under design.
The highway is moving closer to Mullens, which will open up the eastern end of Wyoming County for further development opportunities.
“Our goal is to get the Coalfields Expressway to Mullens as quickly as funding allows,” state Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox said.
When finished, it will be the first four-lane highway for both Wyoming and McDowell counties.
And it will open up endless economic development and growth opportunities for a region that has waited patiently for a long time for the kind of modern infrastructure that paves the way to job creation and prosperity.
We saw what the West Virginia Turnpike upgrade to interstate standards, the completion of Interstate 64 and the expansion of U.S. 19 did for the Beckley area.
We saw what the New River Gorge Bridge did for the Fayetteville area.
We saw what U.S. 19 also did for Summersville.
No new road construction happens quickly enough, but the fact that more pavement is coming for the Coalfields Expressway is positive news, especially in tough economic times.
It still may be many years away, but we’re confident that eventually the Coalfields Expressway will reach 100 percent completion.
