MORGANTOWN — If you’re buzzing along on Interstate-79, you may not notice it, but the pair of bridges crossing Halleck Road are deteriorating.
From underneath, you can see crumbling seams and supports. Metal I-beam braces have been installed in spots to add support.
Delegate Linda Longstreth, D-Marion, recently complained about the bridge to The Dominion Post.
“It just makes me angry,” she said. Her anger comes in the context of the Roads to Prosperity bond program. She and other legislators supported it not just because it would bring jobs and build new roads, but because of the promise that it would free up Road Fund money to be used to repair and maintain existing roads and bridges.
Not much money has been freed up yet, she said, and they feel misled.
“That’s disgraceful we’ve got one that could cave in,” she said. “Well, we need some money and we need that money up here.”
Many voters who supported Roads to Prosperity were focused on the crumbling and potholed roads and bridges in their communities, she said. “We have to take care of the ones that we still have and we’re going to continue to use.”
TRIP, the national transportation research group, reported that in 2016, 17 percent of the state’s bridges 20-feet or longer were structurally deficient (the state has more than 6,600 bridges but the Division of Highways doesn’t give an exact count of those 20 feet or longer).
The Morgantown area, TRIP says has 202 bridges with 29 of them — 14 percent — structurally deficient.
Longstreth said she’s talked to the DOH District 4 bridge engineer about the problem, and this past week called DOH.
As it turns out, the story for this particular pair of bridges may have a happy ending — some unspecified time in the future.
DOH spokesman Brent Walker acknowledged receiving the call from Longstreth.
“According to the District 4 bridge engineer,” Walker said, “we are aware and are getting ready to initiate a bridge design study to determine what kind of repairs are needed and what kind of cost is involved.”
