New traffic signals at Childers Run, Kesling Mill intersections are mostly complete, awaiting delivery of signal heads

Monica Zalaznik
March 1, 2023

BUCKHANNON – The construction of new traffic signals on two accident-prone intersections is underway.

Jennifer Dooley, a representative with the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s Public Relations Division, said the construction on the U.S. Route 33 intersections with Childers Run Road and Kesling Mill Road is underway.

Dooley said Brian Cooper, the engineer for District 7 of the W.Va. Division of Highways, reported that the contractor is still waiting for the materials used to construct the signal heads to be delivered.

“I spoke with Brian Cooper, District 7 Engineer, and he provided the following information. The traffic signal project at the intersection of Kesling Mill Road and Childers Run Road is a contracted project, and construction has already begun,” Dooley wrote in an email to My Buckhannon this week. “All lights, junction boxes, and support masts have been installed, and the wiring and cables have been run. Currently, the contractor has ordered materials for signal heads and is awaiting delivery of those.”

Dooley said the project was contracted to Pritchard Signal & Light on April 27, 2022, and District 7 Construction is managing it.

According to a previous My Buckhannon article, the project was requested by local government officials after a string of accidents – some resulting in death – occurred at both intersections.

In June 2015, the Upshur County Commission sent a letter to the W.Va. Division of Highways requesting that a stoplight be installed at the Kesling Mill intersection after two then-elementary school students, Cloey Warner and Emily Jozwick, sought assistance from the commission when their classmate’s grandfather died from injuries suffered in a wreck there following a school function.

Buckhannon City Council also asked the DOH to perform a traffic study on the highway from the Brushy Fork Road intersection to the Kesling Mill intersection in April 2019 following a wreck that occurred at the intersection of Childers Run that killed two people, including Buckhannon’s former municipal judge, Matt Hymes.