PROGRESS 2025: Work on Bluefield's over $25 million transportation project starting soon
bluefield — City officials are moving forward on a $25 million plan for making Bluefield's streets easier for pedestrians, bicycle riders and drivers to navigate.
On Sept. 4, 2024, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced that the city of Bluefield had been awarded a $25,748,152 grant to make transportation easier for pedestrians, bicycle riders, wheelchair users and others relying on local roads and sidewalks. The grant was among $1 billion in grants awarded through the federal Bipartisan Infrastructure Law for the Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program.
The project's goal is to convert four of Bluefield's key intersections to roundabouts, create pedestrian and bicycle accommodations through a strategic mountain gap, and make safety improvements that include implementing traffic-calming strategies and installing sidewalks, crosswalks, rectangular rapid-flashing beacons, and street lighting on selected corridors. The Making Residents, Students, and Visitors Safer in the Education and Recreation District program is designed to make safety improvements to a key gateway into historic Black communities and the entrance to Bluefield State University.
Locations for Safe Street projects range from College Avenue, Stadium Drive, Cumberland Road, Princeton Avenue and other roads in the city along with the intersection connecting Cherry Street, Maryland Avenue and Stadium Drive.
Steps in taking the Safe Street project forward are underway, said City Manager Cecil Marson. One step is necessary because the state has a new administration under Gov. Patrick Morrisey and a new Secretary of Transportation, Stephen Todd Rumbaugh, who is also commissioner of the West Virginias Department of Highways.
Bluefield city officials recently met with Rumbaugh while work continues on the memorandum of understanding between the city and the state Department of Highways, he said. Selecting an engineer to oversee the project will be the next step.
'So everything's online and we're moving like crazy to get it started,' Marson said.
The extensive project could take three to four years to complete.
'It's all (Route) 52, all of Stadium Drive, all of College Avenue,' Marson said. 'It's a big undertaking, but we're excited to get it rolling.'
Marson said the project aims to improve transportation across the city.
'It's all safety and mobility in the city, so it's going to be things like bike lanes, it's going to be redoing the sidewalks,' he said. 'It will also entail some of the infrastructure underneath to make sure the storm lines and the sewer lines and all that are where they need to be and, of course, it will be street lighting and some landscaping and crosswalks. It's really to give folks good mobility and a facelift for the city and an improvement to the infrastructure.'
In October 2024, U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., a leader on the Senate Appropriations Committee, visited Bluefield and spoke with local leaders about the project.
Capito visited the Bluefield Economic Development Office during that earlier meeting to hear about the city's plans for the grant. Marson told the senator how the city started working two years ago to obtain the Safe Street for All grant. Thanks to this grant, three of the city's major arteries are 'going to get fixed,' he said.
One roadway, Cherry Street, goes from Bluefield State University to its dorm and classroom facility at the former Bluefield Regional Medical Center. There are times when students use this street, which Marson described as dangerous and treacherous, as a walkway to and from the two campuses.
'That whole road is going to get widened with sidewalks, bike lanes and lighting, Americans with Disabilities Act access, so that's going to completely free up all those kids to move back and forth. When that was a hospital that wasn't necessary, but now that's completely changed,' Marson said in the earlier meeting.
Capito was also told about plans for the Midway Overpass Grant that the city received just before Christmas in 2023. The $13,480,000 award for the city came through the Rural Surface Transportation Grant Program.
Capito later said that she appreciated the briefing, but added, 'you've to to pat yourselves on the back, too.'
'A lot of these are competitive grants and if you're not writing and showing the need and fleshing out the projects as good as you do, you're not going to get the money,' Capito said.
The city had done the work necessary for a major grant application. There are times when applicants have big plans, but they do not have backup plans such as pre-engineering studies, traffic studies, population studies or economic studies, so they cannot justify a grant, Capito said.
'As I was worked to craft the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, I saw a generational opportunity to improve West Virginia's surface transportation infrastructure. U.S. Route 52 is a crucial thoroughfare for Bluefield and these improvements will increase road safety and continue expanding economic opportunities in and around the city. I was proud to advocate for this project and I'm thrilled to see work underway,' Capito said then.
Contact Greg Jordan at
gjordan@bdtonline.com
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