Oct. 10 – West Virginia recently celebrated the seventh anniversary of the Roads to Prosperity program, a bond issue that helps finance highway projects such as the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway, as well as other projects across the state. I can remember traveling from Kanawha County to Fayette County and back years ago, when the West Virginia Turnpike and other highways were just blueprints at the West Virginia Department of Highways. My father, Alan Jordan, began his career with WVDOH when work on that highway system was just beginning. Years later, he retired as one of the department’s chief engineers as the final projects were completed. Traveling through any part of the state in the years before the major highways was an adventure. Our route from Kanawha County to Fayette County meant passing through Montgomery and winding roads high in the mountains. There were small communities here and there and the scenery was often picturesque, but the adventure wasn’t as fun when the weather was bad. Keeping those roads clear was a challenge and the weather often determined whether we visited my grandparents or not. Weather still plays a role when you travel today, but not as much as it did in the 1960s and 1970s. One thing my father taught me was the fact that building any road project is complicated and lengthy. The process became even more complicated over the years as the federal government added regulations on the environment, historic sites and more; Naturally, costs also went up. Dad and other engineers in his department kept dealing with people who just didn’t understand and probably didn’t want to understand how expensive and difficult it can be to build any road. He told me a lot of stories that were quite funny. Years ago, a man from another country who didn’t speak English very well wanted the state to build a road to a reclaimed mining area. I think he wanted to build an industrial park there. My father looked at the area and saw that building a road on that slope would mean cutting off half the mountain and ultimately reducing the flat land above. He tried to explain the situation to the man, but that wasn’t what he wanted to hear. He looked at father. “Are you a road engineer?” he asked. “Yes,” father replied. “Build a road!” the man said. Well, that road never happened. It was impractical and too expensive. Sometimes I called my father when I was doing a story about a road that someone wanted built or changed. There was one case in Tazewell County, Virginia, where a couple wanted to build a road into their neighborhood. There was only one narrow road leading to the five houses there. The man said a bulldozer could make a road down one side of the hill. I called Dad that evening and described the situation. Could a road be built so easily on that slope? Dad said that couldn’t happen. What they wanted would cost at least $1 million. Once the design work, payroll, necessary surveys and everything else was completed or estimated, that would be the price tag. Sometimes my dad would take me and my sister, Karen, to a highway construction site when work wasn’t going on, and I was always amazed at the scale of it all. Huge amounts of stone were moved and the machinery was gigantic. He taught us never to go into those locations and certainly never to pick up anything that looks like an electrical wire. I still remember the public safety announcements on television warning against entering construction sites. You never knew when you were going to encounter an explosive cap that didn’t go off. The Roads to Prosperity will help make new highways a reality, but it will take years of planning and construction to plan and turn them into roads. When I’m old and grayer than I am now when the King Coal Highway and the Coalfields Expressway are completed, I won’t be surprised. I learned that you have to be patient when highways are being built. If I eventually have grandnephews and nieces riding them, I’ll be happy.
Contact Greg Jordan at gjordan@bdtonline.com
