Governor Bob Wise recently announced that bids will soon be opened on four additional contracts for the Coalfields Expressway and King Coal Highway.

Wise, who spent October 27 in Wyoming and McDowell counties meeting with local leaders, cited the efforts of Senator Robert C. Byrd and Congressman Nick Rahall to provide funding for the projects and noted that one of the projects would provide the paving that will complete work on a three-mile segment of upgraded highway in the Sophia area of Raleigh County. “But each of these contracts,” he said, “is part of an ultimate goal--to provide a new economic lifeline for the people of southern West Virginia.”

One contract on each route will be bid November 18, with another on December 9. The Coalfields Expressway project scheduled for November 18 bidding calls for over 2.3 million cubic yards of excavation to grade and drain 1.2 miles of new WV 121 from Slab Fork to Big Ridge in Raleigh County.

The King Coal Highway contract, the second one for four-lane upgrading of US 52, calls for grading and drainage involving nearly half a million cubic yards of excavation on 0.22 mile from the recently completed $27 million interchange with Appalachian Corridor Q (US 460) east of Bluefield to US 19. Including demolition of six buildings, the Mercer County project is the first of those necessary to extend the route to Airport Road.

To be bid December 9, the second Coalfields Expressway calls for construction of 1.37 miles of WV 121 from Surveyor Creek Road to Slab Fork Road. Requiring nearly 2.5 million cubic yards of excavation, drainage and waterline relocation, the Raleigh County contract includes guardrail, pavement marking and signing and the paving necessary to complete four other Sophia-area projects totaling $32 million built since 2000. Three of the projects required more than six million cubic yards of excavation to grade and drain 2.97 miles of the route. The fourth was for construction of two bridges, one ramping over WV 16 and the other carrying the mainline over WV 54 at a new four-leg diamond interchange that ties the four-lane highway from Surveyor Creek Road into five-lane WV 16 near the Lester Mall shopping center.

The second King Coal Highway project calls for more than 200,000 cubic yards of excavation to grade and drain 0.18 mile of four-lane US 52 from Mercer County 25 to south of the old Raleigh Grayson Turnpike. The segment is near the one to be bid November 18, on the opposite side of US 19, over which a bridge will be built under a future contract.

Coalfields Expressway Executive Director Richard Browning applauded the efforts of “all those involved in getting these two contracts out to bid.”

“Funding for the projects comes from the last Federal Highway Bill,” said Browning, “and thus through the efforts of not only Senator Robert C. Byrd and Congressman Nick Rahall but Governor Wise, who was then serving in the U.S. House of Representatives. I look forward to helping to cut the ribbon on the first real usable section of the highway.”