CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A member of the state Senate is upset the a new four-lane highway project planned for southern West Virginia has been able to jump ahead of some other longstanding road projects.
Sen. Bob Plymale (D-Wayne) questioned state Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox on the sudden rise of the Hobet project during a legislative interim committee Monday at the state capitol.
The 2.6 mile Hobet highway will take traffic from the U.S. Route 119-Route 3 intersection in Boone County up to the former Hobet mountaintop removal mining site which Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin and others hope will be a major industrial site for the state.
The rapid rise of the project, which is now on the state DOH’s priority list, has caught the attention of Plymale.
“It baffles me how we can talk about building a road that wasn’t even on the list, not even discussed at all in your six-year plan, and now all of the sudden it magically appears on it and I think it’s a stretch saying it’s in the federal highway system,” Plymale said.
But Mattox told Plymale the projected $100 million was approved by the Federal Highway Administration to be part of the federal highway system, making it eligible for federal funds, because it will connect with U.S. Route 119, Corridor G.
Plymale said there are other federal projects like the Interstate 73/74 Corridor project in Prichard in Wayne County, an area that he represents, that can’t seem to get much attention.
“You’ve already bought all of the land for I-77/74 to Prichard, 8.9 miles, and we don’t have one construction project,” Plymale said.
A $5 million bridge was built as part of the Wayne County project in recent years but doing the rest of the project would be expensive, $300 million, according to Mattox.
“There were a lot of commitments made decades ago. A lot of projects were started that were never completed, the Tolsia Highway, being one of those,” Mattox said.
The Hobet project is one of a kind, Mattox said.
“This, as I understand it, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for southern West Virginia to develop a huge site for future economic development,” he said.
The Hobet project will be a design-build project and the state has committed to pay the firm chosen $10 million a year for 10 years to cover the costs, Mattox said. Bids will be opened in October with construction scheduled to begin next March.