Coalfields Expressway 50 percent complete in McDowell
welch — Construction on McDowell County's first four-lane highway has reached the half-way point.
Work on the Coalfields Expressway near Welch is now 50 percent complete, according to Rusty Marks with the public relations office for the West Virginia Department of Transportation.
Marks said the Welch segment of the four-lane is still on target for completion in 2026.
Once the five-mile stretch of the Coalfields Expressway in Welch is completed, it will be the first usable section of four-lane highway in McDowell County's history.
It will extend from the city limits of Welch to the Wyoming County line.
Work on the five-mile stretch of four-lane highway began during the summer of 2022.
Once it is completed, motorists will be able to connect with the Coalfields Expressway near Welch Community Hospital and the junction of Route 7 past the Indian Ridge Industrial Park and into Wyoming County.
But it will start as a two-lane highway near the hospital before becoming four lanes, according to Marks.
'This project will be usable when completed,' Marks said. 'The stretch from the hospital to Welch will be two lanes; the rest will be four.'
The Coalfields Expressway will extend through both West Virginia and Virginia.
The full West Virginia routing of the Coalfields Expressway will take the new four-lane corridor 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.
Sections of the four-lane also are under development in Southwest Virginia, including in Buchanan County.
According to the West Virginia Department of Transportation, the Coalfields Expressway is intended to provide a multi-lane expressway, with partial control of access, connecting I-64/I-77 (the WV Turnpike) at Beckley and U.S. 23 at Slate, Va. The DOT says the project will create a modern, safe and efficient transportation corridor for Southern West Virginia and Southwest Virginia and is expected to promote economic development opportunities for the region.
In West Virginia the Coalfields Expressway will be about 65 miles long and in Virginia the length of the corridor will be about 50 miles.
The completion of the Coalfields Expressway also will provide improved access for the Indian Ridge Industrial Park in McDowell County and the John D. Rockefeller IV Industrial Park in Wyoming County, as well as several recreational and tourism industries along the corridor, according to the DOT's project description website.
It goes on to say that the Coalfields Expressway Authority, which is now defunct in West Virginia, published in December 2006 an Economic Impact Study concerning the expressway. The conclusions of that study found that the Coalfields Expressway is expected to allow for its counties to generate increased economic growth.
Contact Charles Owens at
cowens@bdtonline.com
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