Lew McDaniel, Morgantown
The intersection of U.S. 119 and I-68, south of Morgantown, was to be repaved by last November. For various reasons, it wasn’t. Instead, paving started Friday — the day before WVU’s commencement and one of the busiest traffic days of the year. The only worse times than graduation weekend would have been a football weekend or the beginning of WVU’s fall semester.
I saw no advance warning about the paving anywhere. Friday afternoon, the District 4 (this area) Division of Highways (DOH) web page read in part, “Only those work activities that are expected to affect traffic are listed.” None were listed at all.
Their notion of “affect traffic” and mine must differ. I spent over an hour getting out of the nearby Walmart parking lot onto U.S. 119.
Moving northbound once you made it to U.S. 119 was not much faster. And that was at 3 p.m.. Had I known about this disorganized muddle, I would never have gone anywhere near it.
Traffic management consisted of cones to block lanes. No stop light timings were adjusted to allow for single traffic lanes vs. the normal two-lane flow. No signs suggesting alternate routes. Nothing.
While it is good to see the road finally repaved, some advance warning and better traffic management would have been appreciated. And in any case, time the maintenance for off-peak traffic times.
