MORGANTOWN – People who’ve watched the Division of Highways for years may recall when the answer to nearly every question from legislators was some form of “We can’t do it?” The list of reasons included lack of money and lack of personnel.
Department of Transportation Secretary Jimmy Wriston told legislators on Tuesday that that’s turned around. “The state of the Department of Transportation is in very good shape for the efforts that we have put out, for the expenditures and the investments that we have made.”
Five or six years ago, “it was easy to say all the roads are bad. Today all the roads are not bad,” he said. There are still some bad ones. “We’ll get to them. The plan is working.”
Wriston presented his update on DOH operations and road maintenance to the Oversight Commission on Transportation Accountability on the final day of December interim meetings at the Capitol.
“We’re planning our work and we’re working our plans,” he said. Seven DOH districts had completed all planned core maintenance work – mowing, patching, ditching – by November and by the end of December all 10 will be at 100%.
“Those core activities are absolutely the fundamental part of our entire plan for recovering our highways, from getting back to where we need to be from under-investing for decades and decades in our infrastructure,” he said.
This year, he said, DOH completed 221 slip and slide repairs. Three years ago, there were 2,300 known slides, and now there are under 800. That comes in part from general revenue funding of $666 million across the last five years.
This is the third year in a row that DOH has seen a net gain in employees. There are now a little over 6,000 employees, and they don’t really need more – just some in targeted areas that are a little shorthanded – he didn’t specify the areas, and no one asked. But they’ve solved lot of internal cultural issues ad installed leadership in key places, he said.
“I think your Department of Transportation is the best in the country,” he said. “The other states are looking to us for leadership and they’re getting it.”
Delegate Daniel Linville, R-Cabell, projected that at the slide-repair pace Wriston gave, they should be caught up in two years, and asked if they’ll be able to start addressing slides proactively at that point.
Wriston said, “Yes, absolutely”” They’re putting systems in place to assess potential slides instead of fixing them afterward.
Linville and Wriston also talked about what many regard as a legislative error back in 2016 – when legislation diverted road construction sales tax revenue from the Road Fund into the General Fund.
Wriston said sales taxes put an average $12 million to $14 million per year into the Road Fund, and that’s been lost for road projects. Fortunately, Roads to Prosperity in 2019 provided other money.
This year alone, Wriston said, DOH has $1 billion in new construction contracts. All told, DOH has $4 billion in active construction projects and nearly $1 billion in active engineer consultant contracts for the next round of projects.
Linville commented on the 2016 legislation, “That’s personally something I’d like to see us correct.”
Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, asked Wriston for an update on two Morgantown-area projects: a $70 million bridge across Monongahela River expected to begin in spring 2024, and the new $30 million Harmony Grove interchange, which could begin as early as July 2025. Both are intended to provide better interstate access to Mountaintop Beverage and the wider Morgantown Industrial Park area.
Wriston said the bridge plans will be ready by February, and hopefully the various permits and clearances shortly after that. The main difficulty is with federal environmental processes. “We’re working very hard to try to build trust with those federal agencies. Everything today has been politicized …. to the point where many times they work counterproductive to their own agendas.”
The interchange is technically not a project yet. The developer (Enrout Properties) has responsibilities – studies, environmental processes, financial milestones. When they reach their milestones they will submit to DOT and DOT has 30 days to determine if it’s feasible.
“We have always committed to that project. We know that it’s feasible. … I would bet you a dollar against a doughnut that the minute we start that other bridge project, the federal agencies may take a harder look at the interchange.”
Email: dbeard@dominionpost.com
