PROGRESS 2025: Construction to resume on King Coal Highway near Bluefield
Construction will soon be underway on another section of the King Coal Highway near Bluefield.
Former Gov. Jim Justice joined local and state officials last November for what was largely a ceremonial groundbreaking for the $58 million project.
The groundbreaking ceremony was held on November 4, one day before the Nov. 5 election, but because winter weather was fast approaching, state highway officials at the time advised that actual construction work wouldn't get underway until this spring.
That work will pick-up where the highway corridor currently comes to an abrupt end along Airport Road.
Officials with the West Virginia Department of Transportation have not yet confirmed when the actual construction will begin, but it is expected to be this spring.
The new contract will take the King Coal Highway another 2.5 miles from Airport Road toward Littlesburg Road, near Route 20 and the Bluewell community.
A third contract also still in the planning stages will extend the King Coal Highway another five miles from the Littlesburg Road area toward the Montcalm community once that contract is finalized and awarded.
Ryland Musick, District 10 Engineer for the West Virginia Division of Highways District 10 office, said the Littlesburg Road to Montcalm section of the King Coal Highway is still under environmental review.
It's not clear how long that ongoing review will take. A contract award date for that section of the King Coal Highway has not yet been announced.
That 4.3 mile stretch of the King Coal Highway will go from Montcalm (County Route 11/4) in the north to Littlesburg Road (or West Virginia Route 20) in the south where it will connect to the existing section of the King Coal Highway at Airport Road.
The King Coal Highway is West Virginia's local corridor of the future Interstate 73/74/75 routing. In West Virginia, it will extend 95 miles through Mercer, McDowell, Mingo, Wyoming and Wayne countries along or near currently existing U.S. 52 from U.S. 119 near Williamson to Interstate 77 in Bluefield.
In the bigger picture, the final Interstate 73/74/75 routing will extend from Detroit, Michigan to Myrtle Beach, S.C, opening up a large swath of Southern West Virginia to interstate access.
Getting to this point in the project has been a long journey.
Work on the King Coal Highway in Bluefield dates back to the year 2001.
But the first usable section of the roadway in Mercer County wasn't opened to traffic until late 2023.
Gov. Jim Justice, along with a host of local and state officials, were on hand for that ceremony, which marked the culmination of a project dating back to 2001. That's when work began on the K.A. Ammar Interchange at Bluefield — the first local segment of the King Coal Highway. The previous phase of the project got underway a decade earlier and was finished in 2008. It included the construction of the twin interstate bridges high above Stoney Ridge, which was later named the Christine West Bridge by the West Virginia Legislature.
However, after 2008, work on the King Coal Highway in Bluefield was stalled for more than a decade due to a lack of federal funding needed to continue the project.
That's why area residents started calling the bridge above Stoney Ridge the 'bridge to nowhere.' Work on the project finally resumed in 2018 through Justice's Roads to Prosperity Program, which awarded a $68 million contract for the Airport Road stretch of the new interstate corridor.
This usable section of the four-lane corridor extends more than two miles before crossing Kee Dam at Airport Road. Motorists now travel on the roadway each day, including both local residents and out-of-state visitors, many of whom are traveling to the region to ride the Hatfield-McCoy Trail system.
During the Dec. 13, 2023 opening ceremony, Justice vowed to continue construction on the new interstate corridor. He is now a U.S. senator in Washington serving in the Mountain State, and in a position of power to help secure federal funding for future sections of the new four-lane corridor.
During the 2023 opening ceremony, a parade of vehicles crossed the former Bridge to Nowhere for the first time, including a number of antique cars that were chosen to participate in the special event.
Justice told the Daily Telegraph after the Dec. 13 ceremony that the bridge should have opened years earlier.
'It's the culmination in my opinion of a dream, but also a nightmare,' Justice said after the ribbon cutting. 'I mean, for crying out loud, to sit here for decades. It's ridiculous. It's totally ridiculous. And I hope you know from my standpoint, I'm the most impatient guy in town. And I wanted it to happen and we got it done some way, some how with a lot of great work, and a lot of great people were there. It should have been done a long, long time ago. It could have been done decades before my watch, but we got it done.'
The King Coal Highway will eventually reach into McDowell County and Wyoming counties.
New West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey has not yet issued any statements with regards to the King Coal Highway project.
— Contact Charles Owens at cowens@bdtonline.com. Follow him @BDTOwens
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Fox News
3 days ago
- Fox News
‘Climate cult' on notice as lawmakers push to let feds hop blue-state roadblocks to ‘US energy dominance'
EXCLUSIVE: The left-wing "climate cult," as one lawmaker put it, will have fewer avenues to throw roadblocks in front of domestic energy production and President Donald Trump's efforts to obtain "American energy dominance" if a landmark effort between members of both the House and Senate is successful. "I am an energy guy from an energy-rich state," West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice told Fox News Digital on Thursday before introducing a bill to prevent state governments less supportive than Charleston from getting in the way of the development, transmission and distribution of reliable energy sources. His House counterpart in the effort, Rep. Nick Langworthy, R-N.Y., hails from such a place. The congressman said that, in contrast to lawmakers in Justice's state, New York Democrats have "waged an extremist crusade" against developing a crucial multi-state natural gas deposit ironically named for a town in the Empire State. The "Energy Choice Act" has drawn 37 co-sponsors across the House and Senate and gained backing from Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who's been touring Alaska this week to promote similar energy development goals. The bill would prohibit state and local governments from placing restrictions on the connection, re-connection, modification, installation, transportation, distribution, or expansion of a source of energy that is sold in interstate commerce and/or is to be delivered to an end-user. Justice, who, as governor, signed multiple bills boosting his state's own renowned coal industry, including slashing severance taxes, said the U.S. energy crisis is "too great" to allow the "luxury of picking the winners and losers." "Americans ought to have the right to choose what is best for their energy needs." Tens of thousands of square miles of the massive Marcellus Shale formation runs through New York, but development has been under a state-sanctioned ban for more than a decade. Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia, meanwhile, continue to develop their major caches of Marcellus shale gas, while the piece of the formation in the Maryland Panhandle also remains off-limits. Those bans, said Langworthy, have sent home energy costs "through the roof" in places like New York, which he said is "teetering on the edge of an energy crisis—all to satisfy the radical fantasies of the far-left climate cult." "New York has been ground-zero for the Green New Deal, where common sense goes to die and working families get stuck with the bill," said the lawmaker, a former NYSGOP chairman. That disparity led him to draft the House version of the bill, hoping, in his words, to "restore sanity" to U.S. energy policy and give Americans the choice of affordable and reliable power. They shouldn't be "forced into rolling blackouts to please eco-activists who don't live in the real world," he quipped. "I thank Senator Justice for introducing this bill in the Senate and urge its swift action." Meanwhile, Justice's state remains the second-largest coal producer in the nation, and his Senate counterpart, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito also signed onto the bill. "America needs more energy, and our state and local governments shouldn't discriminate against baseload energy generation that increases security, affordability, and creates good paying jobs across the country, simply because it doesn't align with their political agendas," she told Fox News Digital. Alabama's Black Warrior Basin is another area of the country home to a vast coal power potential developed over several decades. Gov. Kay Ivey in 2025 signed the Powering Growth Act seeking to streamline the permitting process in the Yellowhammer State, and Sen. Tommy Tuberville – who hopes to succeed the term-limited governor – is another top sponsor of the bill. "Energy security is national security," Tuberville has said. "For four years, Joe Biden and woke Democrats took a sledgehammer to American energy production. We need to rein-in blue states who caved to the climate cult and imposed ridiculous regulations that are deeply unpopular with hardworking Americans," he said.
Yahoo
27-05-2025
- Yahoo
The City of Bluefield plans for a consolidated emergency response facility
BLUEFIELD, WV (WVNS) – The City of Bluefield has taken steps to improve emergency response services across all departments throughout the city. First announced last summer, plans for a consolidated facility for emergency responders are moving forward, with the City of Bluefield having applied for federal funds to make the vision a reality. The centralized facility would bring together EMS, police, and fire departments in the city, and would provide a wider variety of resources for the agencies, many of which are operating out of the Bluefield City Hall location. Bluefield City Manager, Cecil Marson told 59News that city authorities are looking at multiple potential locations for the site, and that the plan is part of a greater effort to provide the best possible service experience for the citizens of Bluefield.'We're working on designs for the building in a couple different locations. Our goal is to give the most responsive service we can to the citizens of Bluefield in our community,' said Marson. 'So, we're looking at it very closely to make sure that we're doing the best absolutely that we can to take care of everyone.' Marson says, along with federal funding from the offices of U.S. Senators Jim Justice and Shelley Moore Capito, the city will be seeking grant funding for the project from multiple other sources as well. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
23-05-2025
- Yahoo
CDS funds can be used on CFX, King Coal
bluefield — Years ago it was a common practice for lawmakers to use federal earmarks to help build highway projects across West Virginia. Locally, some of the earliest segments of the Coalfields Expressway and the King Coal Highway were started as a result of federal earmarks secured by lawmakers, including the late U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd. Byrd, a powerful Democrat in Washington at the time, faced frequent criticism for his efforts in securing federal earmarks for West Virginia. A number of years later the use of earmarks fell out of favor with Congress, and the practice was ultimately supended. However, in more recent years, earmarks have returned with a new name. They are now called Congressionally Directed Spending awards, and are considered on an annual basis. U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito, was recently asked by the Daily Telegraph why Congressionally Directed Spending awards are not currently being used to help with highway projects like the Coalfields Expressway in McDowell County and the King Coal Highway in Bluefield. Capito said the West Virginia Department of Transportation is, in fact, seeking Congressionally Directed Spending awards for those and other highway corridors across the Mountain State. She was also asked whether or not elected officials in Mercer and McDowell counties had requested such federal funding support for the highway projects in their respective counties. 'There is no reason why I cannot ask for a Congressionally Directed Spend in those areas,' Capito said in reference to the Daily Telegraph question during a recent media call with West Virginia reporters. 'Whether it is King Coal or Coalfields Express or Corridor H or whatever — Route 2 has some issues too on expansion.' Capito said her office is in regular contact with the West Virginia Department of Highways with regards to the transportation needs of the Mountain State. 'I am generally working with the West Virginia Department of Transportation to see where their priorities are so they can get, so we can cobble together the funds to actually have success,' Capito said. 'I know we just got recently a grant for the King Coal Highway. It came through. It was a discretionary grant. So that is good news. And we just gotta keep plugging away. These are massively expensive highways but they need to be completed.' Capito said the DOH will sometimes ask the counties to join in on funding requests for specific transportation projects. 'Mainly the big ones you are talking about will come from the West Virginia DOT and we work hand in glove with them.' Capito said. 'And they have requested these.' The Daily Telegraph has asked the DOT for information on the recent funding award for the King Coal Highway project, but has not yet received an answer. Years ago the local DOH offices were able to answer media questions, but in recent years all such questions must now be forwarded to the DOH's public relations office in Charleston. That practice was in place during the administration of former Gov. Jim Justice and is now continuing with current Gov. Patrick Morrisey. The King Coal Highway is West Virginia's local corridor of the future Interstate 73/74/75 routing. In West Virginia, the King Coal Highway will ultimately extend 95 miles through Mercer, McDowell, Mingo, Wyoming and Wayne counties along or near currently existing U.S. 52 from U.S. 119 near Williamson to Interstate 77 in Bluefield. In the bigger picture, the final Interstate 73/74/75 routing will extend from Detroit, Michigan to Myrtle Beach, S.C, opening up a large swath of Southern West Virginia to interstate access. According to the National I-73/74/75 Corridor Association, the project will bring growth along the interstate within six states: Michigan, Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina. Sections of the interstate corridor are already open in other states, including North Carolina and South Carolina. The Coalfields Expressway is a new four-lane corridor that will extend through both West Virginia and Virginia. The full West Virginia routing of the Coalfields Expressway will take the new four-lane from Welch in McDowell County toward Pineville in Wyoming County and Beckley in Raleigh County. In neighboring Virginia, the Coalfields Expressway will extend through Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties. Contact Charles Owens at cowens@
