MARTINSBURG, W.Va. — Officials broke ground Wednesday on a multi-million dollar, multi-modal transportation facility that’s planned for downtown Martinsburg.
The Eastern Panhandle Multimodal Transit Center, which is slated for construction at the corner of Race and Raleigh Streets in Martinsburg, has been in the works for close to a decade.
“Its a project that has been nine years in the making.” said Elaine Bartoldson, executive director of the EPTA. “The need for this new center stems from the rising population growth in the Eastern Panhandle and the need for public transportation.”
Planners with the Eastern Panhandle Transit Authority and the Hagerstown/Eastern Panhandle Metropolitan Planning Organization say travelers can access public buses, bike paths, and the MARC train system from the hub at former location of Southern States and Berkeley Glass downtown.
HEPMPO Executive Director Matthew Mullinax said travelers will have lots of options.
“You can walk to it; if you’re in a mobility aid device, if you are in a wheelchair; you have the bicycles there; sidewalks; you can drive there,” Mullinax said. “We’ll have a ‘kiss and ride,’ we’ll have a public parking lot, room for EV vehicles, and as always, you can take the bus.”
Mullinax said as economic development continues to thrive in West Virginia public transit is more important and needed than ever.
The new transit center will feature administrative offices, a transfer station, a fueling station and a consolidated maintenance and storage facility.
The EPTA has received three federal grants that will fund the new $20 million transit center.
Mullinax said three separate discretionary grants were pulled from over a nine-year period to make the facility possible.
“One was covered by the West Virginia Department of Transportation, the other was covered by EPTA through the purchase of the property, that appraised value counts toward the local match. And then the RAISE Grant, which was $10.3 million was 100 percent federal share,” he says. “In the end, Elaine (through EPTA) was able to put up about $1.1 million and we were able to bring in around $20 million,” he said.
Story by Panhandle News Network reporters Luke Wiggs and Marsha Chwalik