KINGWOOD — State Transportation Secretary Tom Smith provided information as well as taking it in, during two days of touring Preston County last week.
Smith and members of his staff, along with Division of Highways (DOH) District 4 Engineer Darby Clayton and Preston Supervisor Blaine Bowmar spent two days on the roads. That included several hours bouncing in the cab of Preston County Commissioner Samantha Stone’s F350 and a school bus.
Smith wants to divert funds from other uses to Preston and perhaps draw manpower from other counties. He will also ask how the state’s National Guard can help. Contractors may also be used.
The tour with Stone was in the Kingwood and southern Preston County areas and included Shower Bath Road, Senior Drive, Stone Hollow Road, W.Va. 92 and 26, and Marquess.
It is a pothole riddled route that bounced the truck around, despite Stone slowing. “I swerve to miss three and hit seven,” she said.
Ditching is a problem, Smith said, and it will be one of the priorities.
On Stone Hollow Road Stone had to pull into the ditch to allow a Subaru to pass. At another spot, a UPS truck had to share the road. And on W.Va. 92, a dump truck pulled onto the berm to allow a funeral procession in the other lane adequate room.
Smith also visited the Tunnelton underpass to see that drainage issue, roads in the northern part of the county, Terra Alta and Route 72.
“I just feel that we can come to some sort of a solution on the roads,”
Stone said. “Even though we’ve got to have the funding and the manpower, those things are within our control. We just have to figure out and be creative of how to make it happen.”
On Route 26, she pointed out that skip paving done last year is deteriorated.
Smith said he thinks there are “some creative ways” to work on the Tunnelton underpass. “It involves CSX working with us, but I think we can make a substantial improvement there,” he said.
At Terra Alta, the DOH is bound by law to have handicap ramping done before the road is paved. Bids on that came in high and will be rebid, and paving is set for the fall.
West Virginia has the sixth largest road system in the country. It does not have the sixth largest budget, State Highways Engineer Aaron Gillispie said.
In 2013, the Blue Ribbon Commission said the DOH needed another $750 million annually to maintain roads. That wasn’t allotted, putting the DOH “in a deep hole,” with maintenance statewide, Smith said.
When a recent state audit showed counties didn’t spend all the money allotted for core maintenance, that didn’t mean the money wasn’t spent, Smith said. It meant it was used for some other need.
Gillispie said the DOH spends $5.7 million in state dollars annually on maintenance in Preston County. So why is it in so much worse shape than other counties?
Staffing is a factor, Gillispie said. Preston is 14 below its 55-person roster. “We have a major issue getting people to come here to work for the money we pay. We don’t have that issue in some counties,” he said.
Smith said the legislature seems to be listening.
“For us it’s good to hear that people are starting to understand that it’s bigger than just the highway department not getting stuff done. It’s us trying to get as much done as we can with what we’ve been given. But we’ve got a huge back log because we haven’t invested in maintenance like we need to,” he said.
