BUCKHANNON – The work to install new traffic signals at two notorious U.S. Route 33 intersections – at its intersections with Childers Run Road and Kesling Mill Road – is scheduled to start next week.

On Wednesday, Jennifer Dooley with the West Virginia Department of Transportation’s Public Relations Division said the equipment for the project was already being delivered this week.

“There is to be installation of two traffic signals at the intersection of U.S. 33 with Childers Run Road and the intersection of U.S. 33 with Kesling Mill Road,” Dooley said. “It was awarded to Pritchard Signal & Light on April 27, 2022, and District 7 Construction is managing this project. The contractor has begun to mobilize equipment this week and work is anticipated to begin next week. The estimated completion date for the project is this fall.”

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.