MORGANTOWN — Imagine downtown Morgantown with no one-way streets.
Or the removal of the delay-inducing mesh point of pedestrians and vehicles known as Grumbein’s Island.
Or Willey Street being upgraded and rerouted to improve the flow of traffic in and out of the city center.
The Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization intends to consider all of those things as part of a thorough review of vehicle and pedestrian traffic downtown.
During Thursday’s meeting of the MPO Policy Board, Executive Director Bill Austin explained the state has approved the use of $400,000 in Surface Transportation Block Grant funds to conduct a microsimulation study.
The goal of the study will be to contemplate various scenarios and identify viable options to improve vehicle, bicycle, pedestrian, transit and freight traffic and thereby support the development of downtown Morgantown.
“It’s to look at various alternative scenarios for how downtown should operate; even things that might be considered radical like eliminating the one-way street pairs. A lot of different options will be considered in this study,” Austin said, adding, “It’s a very exciting, important project.”
The overall cost of the study is $500,000. Austin explained that representatives of Morgantown, Monongalia County and WVU have met to discuss that local investment.
“We have a game plan to provide that match,” he said.
The MPO will work through the West Virginia Division of Highways to secure a consultant for the study, which won’t get underway until sometime after the July 1 start of the new fiscal year.
Also on Thursday, Austin said the state has agreed to utilize some $250,000 in Carbon Reduction Program funds to design the Smithtown Road (W.Va. 73) and Don Knotts Boulevard (U.S. 119) intersection project.
The DOH previously explained that project — estimated in the $2 million to $2.5 million range — would include a new traffic light and a reconfiguration of the intersection to provide two departure lanes heading south (away from town) on U.S. 119.
The state is using Highway Safety Improvement Program funds to construct the improvements, but it was previously believed the engineering costs would have to be raised locally.
Monongalia County Commission President and MPO Policy Board member Tom Bloom thanked both the board and MPO staff for pushing the use of the Carbon Reduction Program funds with the state.
“I think we just saved the citizens of Monongalia County $250,000,” he said.
Both the Surface Transportation Block Grant and Carbon Reduction Program are new funding sources available to MPOs for specific project types.
While the figures are preliminary, the STBG looks to bring $3 million into Monongalia County annually for the next five years (2022-26) while the CRP will provide $350,000 each year over the same time period.
Lastly, Mike Kelly was selected to serve as the policy board’s chairman for the coming year. Joe Statler will serve as vice-chair and Patty Lewis will remain the body’s treasurer.
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