MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The City of Morgantown will receive federal funding to support the Multimodal Morgantown Project planned for the Dorsey Avenue area.
The Office of Senator Shelley Moore Capito and Morgantown city officials each made announcements that the city has been awarded $8 million to the city as part of the United States Department of Transportation RAISE (Rebuilding American Infrastructure with Sustainability and Equity) Grant. City of Morgantown Director of Engineering Drew Gatlin expressed excitement about the potential of what is the largest federal transportation grant ever awarded to the city and how it will affect parts of downtown.
“These $8 million will evaluate connections to complimentary infrastructure, similar ways and means for people to get around, this is just an amazing project,” said Gatlin. “It’s really aspirational and really important for the citizens of Morgantown,” he said.
The funds will be used for the planning and design phase of a corridor connector that aims to improve both vehicle and pedestrian access from Dorsey Avenue up to Downtown Morgantown. The project will look at improving the corridor starting at Dorsey Avenue from Kingwood Pike for pedestrians and cyclists via the creation of new access points and sidewalk improvements. According to Gatlin, this will expand on the public use of the corridor that connects four different schools, three parks, and over a half dozen neighborhoods, as well as support growth in those neighborhoods where the distance between road and building could be as close as 30 feet.
“This project is really looking at how can we leverage every inch of that 30 feet (of walking space) in order to get us a more modern corridor connecting Greenbag Road into Downtown,” Gatlin said.
The $8 million RAISE grant awarded to the City of Morgantown will involve a combination of local and federal participants who will take part in the design phases of the project. That will include federally approved engineers who will take part in determining which upgrades will be applied to the multi-mile corridor, as well as studies involving both city officials and Kingwood Pike area residents who live along Dorsey Avenue. This process is expected to take place over the course of the next couple of years.
“It involves a lot of public engagement and then the design of various parts of this project, which extends all the way from downtown to Greenbag Road, along that Dorsey Avenue and South High Street corridor,” Gatlin said.
According to Gatlin, the goal for the city is to begin the planning and design phases of the Multimodal Morgantown Project by the end of 2025. The hiring of engineers and meetings involving federal officials and representatives from the City of Morgantown are expected to take place during the summer, with a team expected to be fully established by the end of the fall. With the design and construction of the project expected to take a combined ten years to complete, Gatlin and several other City of Morgantown officials are ready to get to work.
“It will have a 5-10 year timeline for planning, design, and construction to begin,” said Gatlin. “Of course we have to get a series of consultants on board to help us with developing these plans, we should be ready starting to do that in the fourth quarter of 2025,” he said.