Indian Ridge Interchange: Funding key to McDowell infrastructure
Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV
August 3, 2010
Indian Ridge Interchange: Funding key to McDowell infrastructure
Bluefield Daily Telegraph
. — A long-planned interchange of the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway at the Indian Ridge Industrial Park in McDowell County is finally moving closer toward construction.
A $900,000 federal funding award announced last week by U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., will allow for the development of the interchange near the new $232 million federal prison project in Welch.
Both the prison, and the interchange, are located near the mountainous border of McDowell and Wyoming counties. The new interchange will consist of both the actual roadway and bridges extending from Dock Creek to Cedar Run. It will help mitigate traffic congestion in the area, ease access to the nearby Indian Ridge Industrial Park and perhaps, most importantly, it will provide McDowell County with its first usable corridor of the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway.
With the federal prison opening this fall, the timing of last week’s announcement couldn’t be better.
A modern infrastructure system at the industrial park is absolutely necessary to handle not only anticipated traffic to and from the federal prison, but also future growth at the site.
Rahall correctly credits the late Robert C. Byrd as the lawmaker who helped make the federal prison, and the 300 new jobs it has created, a reality for McDowell County. Rahall, who first requested federal funding for the McDowell County interchange several years ago, is calling the project a turning point for the local economies of McDowell and Wyoming counties.
He is correct. With the development of this long-awaited interchange project, officials are taking another giant step toward the development of the Indian Ridge Industrial Park. By joining the Coalfields Expressway and the King Coal Highway together, the marketability of the industrial park to prospective businesses and industries will be greatly enhanced.
The interchange itself will be “a big site,” according to King Coal Highway Executive Director Mike Mitchem.
In addition to the McDowell County project, Mitchem said the authority has requested another $60 million in federal funding for the King Coal Highway from the Safe Accountable Flexible Efficient Transportation Equity Act for 2011 to help build a usable 2.39-mile segment of the King Coal Highway in Mercer County near Route 123 and the Mercer County Airport.
We welcome Rahall’s help in securing the $900,000 in federal funds for this long-awaited interchange of the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway. This federal funding award is a victory for the citizens of McDowell County, who are still being forced to travel along antiquated and dangerous two-lane corridors such as U.S. Route 52. The new interchange is a small step in the right direction when it comes to providing a modern, four-lane corridor, for McDowell County.
However, additional help is still needed to create more usable segments of the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway in southern West Virginia — and specifically a usable section of the future interstate corridor in Mercer County.
We call upon Rahall, U.S. Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., and U.S. Sen. Carte Goodwin, D-W.Va., to help find the additional $60 million needed to extend the King Coal Highway in Bluefield to Route 123 and the Mercer County Airport.
