MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — As the weather warms up and construction season ramps up the state Division of Highways has a long list of projects in north central West Virginia. DOH District 4 Manager Earl Gaskins said it’s a large area with lots of work planned.
“We have over 4,300 miles of roads in District 4,” Gaskins said on WAJR’s “Talk of the Town.” “If you put that end-to
-end, that would go from Ocean City, Maryland, to San Francisco and halfway back across the country.”
District 4 includes Monongalia, Marion, Harrison, Preston, Taylor, and Doddridge Counties and thousands of miles of roads and ditches with 30 employees to maintain it.
Work on the new access across the Monongahela River to the Morgantown Industrial Park is under construction. Gaskins said the state is still working to acquire two properties in the right-of-way and that is progressing. The first operations residents will see are clearing and excavation operations, and then work on the piers and superstructure will follow.
St. Albans-based Triton Construction was the low bidder on the project at $59.7 million.
“Initially, you’re going to see a lot of clearing and excavation, and the piers will start to grow,” Gaskins said. “As it progresses, you’ll see the decking and the superstructure going up, so it’s going to be very interesting to watch this bridge go up.”
One lane of the I-68 bridge over Route 7 and Deckers Creek was recently closed after critical problems with the bridge deck. The bearings and bolts that secure the girder were aged and failing. Gaskins said the amount and type of road chemicals is the cause of the deterioration, and repairs had to be made immediately. However, due to the size of the bolts, they are being specially ordered, resulting in the closure with no apparent activity.
“I know it’s inconvenient, but you don’t want someone getting hurt on a bridge,” Gaskins said. “That particular failure involved the bearing, which is what the girder sets on, so that’s a key component of the bridge.”
He said much of the work on I-68, I-79, and the bridge over the Monongahela River will be substantially complete in the next two years or so. The improvements will make travel through the area much smoother, but they do require some sacrifice from the motoring public.
“Give us a couple of years, and you’re going to see a tremendous benefit from these bridges,” Gaskins said. “Bear with us for a couple of years, and we’ll have them opened up; they’ll be repaired, and it will be better for everybody.”
Gaskins implored the public to pay attention and slow down when driving through a construction zone. In April of this year, a 24-year-old worker was killed on I-77 southbound while trying to fill a pothole. Focus on driving and leave the cell phones alone is the advice from Gaskins.
“It does happen every day; we have people that get hurt on the job,” Gaskins said. “We ask everyone to be very careful and act like it’s their family that’s out there.”