By David Beard and Jeff Jenkins, The Dominion Post/WVMetroNews
MORGANTOWN — When the Drive Forward WV website was launched Monday not all projects from the Roads to Prosperity list had been transferred, according to state Division of Highways spokesman Brent Walker.
“We’re just continuing the process of moving those hundreds of projects over from our original spreadsheet to our new Drive Forward website,” Walker said Tuesday. “No project has been taken off the list.”
One of those that temporarily vanished is the I-79 connector proposed for somewhere north of the West Run-Bakers Ridge area.
Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) Executive Director Bill Austin also confirmed that the project is still alive, but the funding pockets may change.
Austin said a Preliminary Investigation & Engineering (PIE) study, also known as an environmental study, is planned. The study will be complex and could take a long time, which means the project might not be ready for the Roads to Prosperity bond.
If the study is done in time, he said, it could be put back into consideration for the Prosperity bond.
The project, for now, is federally funded, Austin said. The MPO’s Transportation Improvement Program for Fiscal Years 2019-2023 shows the project, called the WV7 OP Interchange, broken into six stages running from 2021 through 2023. Stages are for federal Surface Transportation Program or National Highway Performance Program Funds.
The accompanying map tentatively shows the project connecting with I-79 near where U.S. 19 passes under the interstate, some distance before W.Va. 7 breaks off toward Blacksville.
The red conceptual route that alarmed some Bakers Ridge Road residents, causing them to worry the connector may run through their living rooms, is gone from the map. Austin said, again, that that route will depend on the PIE study.
Regarding the missing projects, Walker said “We’re on it, we’re tweaking it, we’re fixing it.” There’s no project on the Prosperity list that won’t be part of Drive Forward.
During Monday’s DOH news conference, state Transportation Secretary Tom Smith said the cost of several projects has changed and that will be reflected on the new website. He said in some cases the scope of the projects have been adjusted. Walker said expect those changes to continue throughout the Roads to Prosperity program.
“You’ll see some fluctuations in those but the idea is to update, as the scope of work updates, we will have to update our engineering estimates,” Walker said.
Gov. Jim Justice has asked Smith and other DOH officials to visit every county in the state to discuss the Roads to Prosperity program to “share the process of how projects are chosen, and dollars distributed.”
Smith was in Huntington Tuesday to talk about projects planned in Cabell, Wayne, Lincoln, Logan and Mingo counties.
