MORGANTOWN — It was publicly announced last week that the West Virginia Division of Highways plans to build a bridge across the Monongahela River in the next 28 months.
The literal structure, estimated to be in the neighborhood of $70 million, is also a bridge in the figurative sense.
The DOH is building it to buy additional time to construct the nearby I-79 Harmony Grove interchange while still fulfilling the state’s promise to improve connectivity between the interstate system and Mountaintop Beverage (Morgantown Industrial Park) in a timely fashion.
While the exact location of the new bridge has yet to be officially determined, DOH’s original “Alternative 3” appears to be No. 1 in the minds of some local officials.
Based on rough preliminary sketches provided to The Dominion Post, that option would connect to U.S. 119/Grafton Road in the less than half-mile stretch between Scott Avenue and the Glotfelty Tire Center, located at 370 Grafton Road. The connection would intersect Smithtown Road somewhere in the area of the Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses (379 Smithtown Road) before crossing the river and connecting directly to Rail Street, which is part of the Morgantown Industrial Park road network.
That’s one of two location options that will be before the Morgantown Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization Policy Board when it meets on Aug. 17.
The other, designated “Alternative 1” by the DOH, would place the bridge in the roughly 1,000-foot stretch between the Morgantown Lock and the BFS station at 305 Don Knotts Blvd. This option would also require a total reconstruction of upper River Road.
Alternative 2, a crossing at Green Bag Road, was eliminated from consideration by the DOH and the MIP.
“When it was first proposed, Alternative 1 looked like the most-logical proposal for the community, and that came from the state. However, after talking with numerous people, Alternative [3] is the most logical. … One, it’s the most-direct route to [Mountaintop],” Monongalia County Commission President Tom Bloom said.
The fear, Bloom continued, is that if the trucks have to get off the interstate and travel down into Morgantown to cross the bridge, they’ll just continue to use the current route — through Westover and down Dupont Road.
“I think what we’ve heard is that Alternative 1 is not as advantageous to the industrial park as Alternative 3. I think that’s probably a fair statement,” MPO Executive Director Bill Austin told The Dominion Post following last week’s announcement.
“Because to get to the interstate, you’ve still got to go up the hill and all of that. Alternative 1, the truck traffic that’s going north is still going to go through Westover. They’re not going to use that. They may use it if they’re going to 68.”
Getting the trucks directly from the interstate to the industrial park, and out of Westover, is the entire purpose of the Harmony Grove interchange, which the state promised in order to land Mountaintop in West Virginia.
But the state can’t control how quickly the Federal Highway Administration signs off on a new interchange. And the number of trucks is only going to increase over time.
Mountaintop Beverage began production in a portion of its 330,000-square-foot bottling facility in May. It was previously explained that the entire facility — plus work on a 170,000-square-foot expansion — could be well underway by year’s end.
Alternative 1 would run those trucks along the rail-trail and into Morgantown’s 1st Ward before sending them across the river.
According to data provided by Austin, that option would increase the vehicles per day from approximately 16,000 to 22,000 on that section of Don Knotts Boulevard, and essentially set Dupont Road up as a direct cut through to Westover, increasing daily traffic on that road from 1,200 vehicles to 4,400 vehicles daily under current conditions.
TWEET @DominionPostWV
