CHARLESTON, W.Va. — The state Division of Highways is anticipating a very busy summer construction season after being slowed by a wetter than normal spring.
State Deputy Highways Commissioner Jimmy Wriston said the state is currently involved in more than $3.4 billion in active construction projects at various stages.
“Some of those projects are design-build, so the engineering phase is being done by the contractor and they’re ordering materials. Some are in the process of finalizing their permit applications and some are actually being worked on,” Wriston recently told MetroNews.
State voters approved a road bond issue, named the Roads to Prosperity program by Gov. Jim Justice, in an October 2017 vote. It gave the state the authority to spend up to $1.6 billion.
The first bond series went to market in 2018 and was valued at $800 million. It ended up at $913 million because of a bond premium while the second bond sale, which went to market last December, netted $746.5 million following a $146.5 million bond premium.
Wriston said the state has been using some of the bond money voters approved for long-term maintenance projects following a refocus on maintenance that began in March of 2019.
“I would say relatively not a lot of bond money has been used on maintenance projects but we have have been using bond money on slips, slides and bridges,” Wriston said.
Bond money can used on projects that have a life of about a dozen years, the Justice administration has previously said.
So the DOH and its boss, the Department of Transportation, have taken the large highway projects that many talked about leading up to the bond vote, and chosen to finance them with a variety of sources.
“We did some things on our end,” Wriston said. “We moved some of the projects into our federal aid program. We put some state dollars into some of those. We managed the financing of the projects from all of our revenue sources, from all of our buckets.”
Wriston said the whole program works together.
“We use our funding buckets in conjunction with the bond program from time to time. But one taking away from another is not going to happen. We’re committed to all of the projects,” Wriston said.
State Transportation Secretary Byrd White told a legislative interim committee last October there had been misconceptions about the “Roads to Prosperity” projects. He said some of the projects originally discussed were candidate projects.
The state has the authority to go back to Wall Street to sell an additional $200 million in bonds. There’s also Parkway Authority bond money and Garvee money on the table but Wriston doesn’t think that will happen any time soon.
“It’s probably not a good time to be going to the bond market,” Wriston said.
Some of the original general obligation bond projects under contract include:
Morgantown Mileground widening ($8.7 m-64 billion); I-79 Weston exit reconfiguration ($24.1 million); Coalfields Expressway-Mullens to Slab Fork-concrete paving ($33.2 million); Berkeley County Interstate 81 widening-Tabler Station to Apple Harvest Drive ($49.5 million); U.S. Route 35 paving-Putnam and Mason counties ($50.9 million); Turnpike widening project-Beckley ($105.6 million); Corridor H extension-U.S. Route 219 to state Route 72 ($175.7 million).
Updates on some of the larger projects provided by Wriston to MetroNews:
–I-79 Weston exit reconfiguration— progressing and should be finished on schedule
–U.S. Route 35— paving of the 14.5 mile final four-lane section is underway. A second project calls for a new intersection near Frazier’s Bottom. Wriston said the projects may not be completed until Spring 2021.
–I-64 widening in Cabell County at Merritts Creek–permit applications being finalized. Wriston said work should begin soon.
–I-64 bridge project at Nitro–Wriston said it’s under contract with preparation and design worker underway. He said final permits should be in place soon.