PARSONS, W.Va. – Gov. Jim Justice announced recently that construction on yet another section of Corridor H will soon be underway.
The Governor was joined by U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, U.S. Congressman David McKinley, leaders with the West Virginia Department of Transportation, and other officials today for a ceremony to announce that he has approved the bid award for the Corridor H Cheat River Bridge Project.
“This is an announcement that is so good, it’s unbelievable,” Gov. Justice said. “I could not be more proud of all the work that we’ve done to get to this point and all that we’re going to continue to do to complete the Cheat River Bridge and Corridor H as a whole.”
The successful bid of $147,839,550 was made by Triton Construction of St. Albans.
At 3,300 feet, the Cheat River Bridge will be among the longest bridges in West Virginia when completed. The four-lane bridge will link the 15-mile stretch of Corridor H between Kerens and Parsons with the section between Parsons and Davis.
When Corridor H is fully completed, it will connect Interstate 79 in Weston, WV, to Interstate 81 in Strasburg, VA.
“As I’ve said over and over, the single most important project in our state right now is Corridor H,” Gov. Justice said. “Corridor H will connect all kinds of communities, from Parsons, to Kerens, to Davis, to the state line and far beyond so we can bring more and more prosperity to the Eastern Panhandle and all of West Virginia. And not only will this project employ a bunch of people, but travelers will continue to spend all kinds of money in these communities long after construction ends.”
“I want to see the completion of this project, and with Governor Justice as our Governor, I know that it’s going to happen,” Senator Capito said. “Corridor H has always been the key to this part of West Virginia and it remains the key. But these are expensive projects, it’s a lot of money to go through this last part. It’s a lot of matching money from the Governor, from the State, so we want to make sure we get it done.”
Currently, 123 miles of Corridor H are open to traffic in West Virginia, with 31 miles left to open, including 10.9 miles that are under active construction. To date, an estimated $1.93 billion has been spent on Corridor H, with an estimated $1.10 billion-worth of work remaining.
“In our infrastructure package, we have $2 billion set aside for rural service transportation,” Senator Capito added. “This is a project that I created so that our highway dollars and our special grant dollars are not getting eaten up by these huge urban projects that take billions and billions of dollars, and still leave rural America behind. Within that is $500 million set aside for new rural programs for Appalachian highway systems at 100% – that means no match. So I’m always trying to think of ways that we can push this as quickly as we can.”
The completion of Corridor H has been in the works for decades, but stalled out years ago. However, when Gov. Justice took office and instituted his Roads To Prosperity program, additional funding began to be secured and work on the corridor picked back up.
“If you go back just five or six years ago, working with Governor Justice, he said then that Corridor H was the most important highway project he wanted to do in West Virginia,” Congressman McKinley said.
“This started as an interchange of Weston in 1972. It’s been 50 years,” Congressman McKinley continued. “If Corridor H had been connected to Charleston or Wheeling or Parkersburg or Morgantown, it would have been finished by now. But because it’s in this rural section in West Virginia, it was kind of just pushed aside, people just ignored it until Governor Justice came on board. Now, with the Governor, we’re going to push this thing forward and finish this. It’s time.”
Congressman McKinley, himself an engineer, went on to say that major infrastructure projects like Corridor H are exactly what is needed in West Virginia.
“I knew about the issues with our roads before the American Society of Civil Engineers published their report card about our conditions in West Virginia where they rank us last – D’s and F’s,” Congressman McKinley added. “This about it: if your son or daughter came back home from school and they had a report card with D’s and F’s on it, what would you do? You’d do something about it. And Jim Justice has done something about it. He’s made a commitment to roads in our state.”
“I think what you’re hearing over and over is the same thing: Governor Justice doesn’t wait,” said WVDOT Secretary Jimmy Wriston, P.E. “He has a pattern of taking these decades-old projects and getting them done.”
“Governor, thank you so much. From the beginning of your administration, in talking about infrastructure, you’ve been dedicated to Corridor H, you included it in your Roads To Prosperity program,” said Robbie Morris, Corridor H Authority Executive Director and Randolph County Development Authority Director. “Senator Capito, Congressman McKinley, and Senator Manchin can’t bring money from Washington without Secretary Wriston and the Governor’s authority to apply for the grants, make it a priority, tell federal highways officials this is where you want the money spent. It can’t happen without your guidance. So we greatly appreciate what you have done.”
“Corridor H is a very expensive project, but it is a very worthwhile project. This section of West Virginia absolutely needs Corridor H,” Morris continued. “We have waited long enough. And for the first time, under the direction of Governor Justice, people are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. There is a plan, not to just keep working on it, but to finish it.”
“We’re making real progress with Corridor H, but we’re going to keep pumping all the money we can pump into moving this project faster and faster,” Gov. Justice said. “If there’s a way – somehow, someway – that we can finish Corridor H before I leave office, that’s what I want to do.”
