MORGANTOWN, W.Va. The crossing point across the Monongahela River for a $70 million bridge to improve access to the interstate for the Morgantown Industrial Park. On WAJR’s “Talk of the Town, Bill Austin, Executive Director of the Morgantown-Monongalia Metropolitan Planning Organization (MMMPO), said the next major event for the project will be a public meeting yet to be scheduled by the West Virginia Department of Highways (DOH).
“They want to get the project designed and built quickly,” Austin said. “I think the target is at the end of 2025 or in that vicinity for actually opening up to traffic.”
Planning for this project has been completely separate from the proposed Harmony Grove interchange, which would provide direct access to the industrial park from I-79. The proposed Harmony Grove interchange continues to move through the sea of federal government red tape, but it is moving and is still on track for construction in the future. Austin said the endorsed option will allow nearly direct access from I-68 to the industrial park via U.S. 119/Grafton Road.
“The key factor is creating a network that can serve the community and enhance our community’s growth,” Austin said.
The Morgantown Industrial Park is about 80 acres with direct barge and rail access and is suitable for offices, light industrial, manufacturing, and warehouses. Adding the I-68 access and later the I-79 Harmony Grove interchange would make the park a multimodal economic center, increasing marketability.
“This is really an economic development project as much as, if not more than, a transportation project,” Austin said. “It’s a benefit to major employers and hopefully encourages increased employment at the industrial park.”
Austin said The Grafton Road option was endorsed because the Green Bag Road created too many elevation challenges that could be difficult for large truck traffic. The other alternative, crossing between the Morgantown Locks and the BFS Station on Don Knotts Boulevard, could have created congestion issues in that area of the city.
“There were a lot of concerns about the proximity to the First Ward as well as having to reconfigure the street network for the industrial park and the potential for additional traffic in that area,” Austin said.