BUFFALO, W.Va. — The West Virginia Division of Highways will add rumble strips and additional warning signs and lights to a dangerous curve in hopes of reducing accidents.
The steep curve at the Buffalo Bridge has been the site of numerous accidents over the past few years, most of them a result of tractor trailers taking the curve too fast and flipping on their side.
“It has been an issue, but about two weeks ago they had three tractor trailer accidents in a week and a half period,” said state Senator Glenn Jeffries, D-Putnam.
The senator’s phone started ringing from constituents wanting something to change.
“I started getting phone calls, Facebook posts, and texts about doing something. Toyota even reached out to me asking for a meeting to discuss this,” Jeffries said.
Jeffries met with those concerned about the safety of the road way and then visited the area with representatives of the DOH. Their plans called for adding rumble strips to the connection from the four lane section of U.S. Route 35 down to the old route at the bridge where most of the trouble usually happens.
“If you put eight sets of them down, four in each set, almost 200 feet apart, that will be almost a quarter of a mile the trucks will be running over rumble stripes,” he said. “It’s going to get their attention that there’s something down at the bottom of the hill you’ve got to pay attention to.”
In addition to the rumble strips, the DOH will add additional signage and flashing caution lights in the area.
Work is underway on the new exit off the highway which will be the Buffalo exit once the road is finished. Jeffries said that too would change the angle and potentially the speed those trucks will have starting down the hill.
Work to install the rumble strips is set for this weekend, weather permitting. The real fix will be the completion of U.S. Route 35. That project includes completing the 15-mile gap section and linking the new section of highway with the existing section.
The grade and drain work on the gap section began in 2016 with Lexington, Kentucky-based Bizzack Construction as the main contractor. Since then, more than 17 million cubic yards of earth has been moved and 7.3 linear miles of pipe installed. Contractors have also built eight bridges. State officials announced in April paving of the new section would be completed by October 2020.
U.S. Route 35 stretches for 37 miles in West Virginia and it’s four-lanes on both ends near Point Pleasant on the west and near Scott Depot on the east. On Jan. 19, 2015, then-Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin called for the completion of the 15-mile stretch.