By Pete Davis

April 19, 2019 - West Virginia Governor Jim Justice was joined by members of the West Virginia Department of Transportation for a groundbreaking ceremony Thursday, to commemorate the start of paving work on the extension of the Coalfields Expressway in Raleigh and Wyoming counties.

The construction will span nearly nine miles, and will mark the first time that a four-lane highway has been built in Wyoming County.

West Virginia Governor Jim Justice is joined by members of the state Department of Transportation for the groundbreaking ceremony commemorating the beginning of the next phase of the Coalfields Expressway.

Photo: Office of the Governor

“There’s no question whatsoever that today is a wonderful day,” Gov. Justice said. “We want to celebrate this day beyond belief because it means we are one step closer to bringing this area of West Virginia to the world, once and for all.”

The governor was joined at the ceremony by West Virginia Secretary of Transportation Byrd White, acting West Virginia Commissioner of Highways Jimmy Wriston, and other WVDOT officials, to mark the beginning of the next phase of the project, which will extend the four-lane section of the expressway beyond its current endpoint at Slab Fork in Raleigh County to Mullens in Wyoming County.

The $33 million highway project will add 10 miles to the existing Coalfields Expressway, extending its total length to 18 miles.

The Coalfields Expressway Authority was created in 1995, and the route later was designated as part of the National Highway System. Although work on the expressway began early in the 21st century, a lack of funding limited the creation of the highway to as far as Slab Fork before the project stalled out.

In 2017, Gov. Justice included extension of the Coalfields Expressway in his Roads to Prosperity program, contingent upon passage of a bond referendum. The bond subsequently passed, and a contract for the extension was awarded to Kokosing Construction Company, which estimates the completion of the current phase of paving in October 2019.

The governor’s Roads to Prosperity program includes plans to further extend the Coalfields Expressway from Welch in McDowell County to the King Coal Highway/Coalfields Expressway interchange at State Route 16.