ELKINS, W.Va. — The head of the Corridor H Authority believes 2026 will be a big year for the highway’s development and could create the momentum needed to push the construction closer to the finish line.
State Senator Robbie Morris who heads up the Authority said they recently learned from the West Virginia Division of Highways the section of the highway from Wardensville to the Virginia border will be under construction in the new year. Also in 2026, the longtime construction work on the road’s stretch from Kerens and Parsons will finally be finished and opened to traffic. According to Morris, once that starts, the clock will start ticking faster on the rest of the project.
“That’s what will tip the scale as far as Corridor H being a faster route east and west, especially from Northern Virginia and DC area into West Virginia. Once GPS systems update, I think you’ll seek traffic on Corridor H increase quite a bit,” Morris told Metronews.
Morris believed the increased traffic would create headaches in the areas where the road isn’t completed or even under construction. The stretch between Parsons and Davis remains a controversy. Opponents continue to challenge the preferred route.
“Once Kerens to Parsons comes on-line and that traffic increases, Thomas was not built to handle the kind of traffic and truck traffic it’s going to be seeing. It’s already quite a problem within those communities, it’s going to get worse,” he said.
The West Virginia Division of Highways maintains the research, development, and background work they have done over the years backs up the preferred route they have selected. Still, opponents have raised objections and continue to try and throw up roadblocks to its development.
“What DOH has done to insure the ROPA Route would take all of those things into consideration, the time frame to get it completed seems to the Corridor H Authority to be the better route, but whatever the better route ends up being, we need to get it under construction,” said Morris.
The Kerens to Parsons stretch is projected to be finished by Memorial Day. That will leave only 16 miles of the highway left to build to make it a four-lane highway from I-79 at Weston to the Virginia State line in Hardy County.
“You’ll finally be able to drive from Weston to Parsons without stopping,” said Morris.
The 6.8 mile stretch from Wardensville to the Virginia border will be done in two phases and the first should be under contract any day now. The second phase is expected to be under contract in the first or second quarter of the new year. The section is expected to be finished by late 2030. The Parsons to Davis section is 9.2 miles and is projected to begin design in 2026, right-of-way purchase in 2028, construction in 2031, and completion by 2034.