PARSONS, W.Va. – Construction on yet another section of Corridor H will soon be underway, Gov. Jim Justice announced on Tuesday.
Officials including Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Congressman David McKinley joined Gov. Justice for a ceremony to announce that a bid has been approved for the Corridor H Cheat River Bridge Project.
The successful bid of $147,839,550 was made by Triton Construction of St. Albans.
At 3,300 feet, the Cheat River Bridge will be among the longest bridges in West Virginia when completed. The four-lane bridge will link the 15-mile stretch of Corridor H between Kerens and Parsons with the section between Parsons and Davis.
“This is an announcement that is so good, it’s unbelievable,” Gov. Justice said. “I could not be more proud of all the work that we’ve done to get to this point and all that we’re going to continue to do to complete the Cheat River Bridge and Corridor H as a whole.”
When Corridor H is fully completed, it will connect I-79 in Weston, to Interstate 81 in Strasburg, Va.
“As I’ve said over and over, the single most important project in our state right now is Corridor H,” Gov. Justice said. “Corridor H will connect all kinds of communities, from Parsons, to Kerens, to Davis, to the state line and far beyond so we can bring more and more prosperity to the Eastern Panhandle and all of West Virginia. And not only will this project employ a bunch of people, but travelers will continue to spend all kinds of money in these communities long after construction ends.”
“I want to see the completion of this project, and with Governor Justice as our Governor, I know that it’s going to happen,” Senator Capito said. “Corridor H has always been the key to this part of West Virginia and it remains the key. But these are expensive projects, it’s a lot of money to go through this last part. It’s a lot of matching money from the Governor, from the State, so we want to make sure we get it done.”
Currently, 123 miles of Corridor H are open to traffic in West Virginia, with 31 miles left to open, including 10.9 miles that are under active construction. To date, an estimated $1.93 billion has been spent on Corridor H, with an estimated $1.10 billion-worth of work remaining.
The completion of Corridor H has been in the works for decades, but stalled out years ago. However, when Gov. Justice took office and instituted his Roads To Prosperity program, additional funding began to be secured and work on the corridor picked back up.
“I knew about the issues with our roads before the American Society of Civil Engineers published their report card about our conditions in West Virginia where they rank us last – D’s and F’s,” Congressman McKinley said. “This about it: if your son or daughter came back home from school and they had a report card with D’s and F’s on it, what would you do? You’d do something about it. And Jim Justice has done something about it. He’s made a commitment to roads in our state.”