Route 20 to close overnight starting in mid-September as courthouse turn-lane work begins

BUCKHANNON – A major thoroughfare through downtown Buckhannon is expected to close overnight beginning in mid-September as work begins to widen the road and extend the turn lane near the Upshur County Courthouse.

West Virginia Division of Highways District 7 Engineer Brian Cooper said in an interview that the project is slated to start next month and run through late November 2026.

“The contractor now says they’ll start after Labor Day, and then the completion date is still this fall,” Cooper said.

Cooper said the work will take place overnight from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. on weeknights. The road will remain open on Friday and Saturday nights.

Normal traffic is expected to continue during the day.

“We’ll have two-way traffic through the day, and then the road will be closed during the nighttime hours,” Cooper said.

Passenger vehicles will be detoured onto Main Street during the overnight closures, while large trucks will be diverted onto Brushy Fork and Stoney Run when possible.

Buckhannon Public Works Director Ethan Crosten previously said the Veterans Day parade and the Buckhannon-Upshur High School homecoming parade fall within the construction window and may need to be reworked.

Cooper said the DOH prefers to avoid Main Street closures while the road is serving as the overnight detour. The agency will work with the city on event requests on a case-by-case basis, but events that run into the evening could conflict with the construction schedule.

“During this construction, we would prefer not to have closures on Main Street,” he said.

The project will extend the turn lane that serves the West Main Street and Locust Street/Route 20 intersection.

“We’ll extend it as much as we can down towards the triangle area,” Cooper said.

The longer lane will give turning vehicles more room to queue and clear space for through traffic.

“You get them out of the way and open that up for through traffic, which helps to move traffic through there more efficiently,” Cooper said.

The work targets a downtown bottleneck the county, city and state have spent years working to untangle. The extended left-hand turn lane at the stoplight will run a little more than 400 feet once the project is completed.

The plans also call for a sidewalk and a retaining wall around the front of the old Upshur County Jail building, new storm drainage and the relocation of a sewer line from under the road to under the sidewalk, according to previous My Buckhannon reporting.

The West Virginia Division of Highways awarded the construction contract June 4. Bear Contracting LLC was the low bidder at $925,047, one of 20 contracts approved from a May 19 bid letting. Crosten told council the city has worked with the firm on past projects and has been pleased with the results.

“They’ve always been a very good contractor to work with,” Crosten said.

The project became possible after the Upshur County Commission voted in December 2022 to buy 10 parcels of land along Chancery Street. In April 2024, crews demolished properties at 12 Chancery Street, 6 Chancery Street and 18 South Locust Street to clear the way for parking and, eventually, the road work.

“Route 20 is the main route that runs through Buckhannon, so having the ability to widen the road and lengthen the third lane will make traffic flow better in the future,” county commissioner Sam Nolte said when the contract was awarded.

Cooper said the DOH has tried to identify potential problems before construction begins. He hopes the long-in-development project will go off without a hitch.

“We’ve tried to cover all of our bases and eliminate any surprises. There’s always a possibility, but we don’t foresee anything at this point that we would encounter any surprises,” Cooper said. “We ask for the public’s patience. We’ll get the contractor in there to do the work, and once we get done, it will be a much improved traffic flow through that area.”