CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox is pleased with a $305 billion federal highway bill that is now the law of the land.
Congress passed the compromise bill late last week and President Barack Obama signed it into law Friday. The program will provide the Mountain State $2.3 billion over the next five years for highway projects.
“We did very well,” Mattox told MetroNews. “We’re very pleased; we worked very well with our Congress-people. We’re just very happy they voted for this program and support our highways and bridges with the program we have in West Virginia.”
Mattox said projects the DOT hopes to complete include U.S. 35 in Putnam and Mason counties, a section of Corridor H and state Route 10 in Logan County.
“We have a six-year highway improvement plan that we’ve put together. This will allow us to fully implement that six-year program,” Mattox said. “The projects that we’ve currently got underway and that we have planned in the future during the life of this bill.”
Mattox thought that above all the bill offers a sense of security.
“It’s very nice, and quite a relief to know that we’ve got a five-year highway bill. And it gives us the certainty that we have lacked in the past,” he said.
The bill, which spans the longest time frame for a transportation measure in 17 years finds its funding sources without raising the federal 18-cent-a-gallon gasoline tax.