WV: I-79 to gain a new interchange in Morgantown

[rickmastfan67]

http://www.transportation.wv.gov/highways/engineering/comment/i79interchange/Pages/default.aspx

[SP Cook]

Your tax dollars at waste.

[froggie]

Having been to that retail area a few times (and IIRC, the Morgantown meet a few years ago stopped there), I can see where they'd want another access in and out.

[hbelkins]

I don't think I've ever been to that shopping complex at the top of the hill, but the access to it from US 19 at the bottom of the hill seems pretty limited and congested.

[GCrites]

Perhaps this will be the freeway project that really makes WV Open For Business.

[dave19]

Interchange opened 9/1/16.

[wphiii]

On Google it appears to just be a 3/4 interchange, did they really not include a ramp onto NB I-79?

[VTGoose]

On Google it appears to just be a 3/4 interchange, did they really not include a ramp onto NB I-79?

It looks like Google was just guessing. The plans shown on the WVDOT site (http://www.transportation.wv.gov/highways/engineering/comment/closed/i79interchange/Pages/default.aspx) show a full interchange. From passing though there in May and July, it looks like getting off I-79 northbound in the winter could be interesting, as steep as the off-ramp was up to a traffic light.

Bruce in Blacksburg

[rickmastfan67]

Interchange opened 9/1/16.

Got a link, or picture of the exit number for it?

[alecscradle]

Interchange opened 9/1/16.

Got a link, or picture of the exit number for it?

Here: https://www.google.com/maps/@39.6390384,-80.0025085,15z

Looks like it will probably be exit 153.  This interchange still doesn't make a lot of sense if it's just going to a mall.  Chaplin Rd up North seems like it could take that traffic.  Maybe add a second right turn lane to University Town Center, but that's it.

If they built something to the West of the interchange I could see it being needed, but it's so hilly there anyways it hardly seems worth it to try to build anything.

[dave19]

http://www.wvalways.com/story/32974591/new-morgantown-i-79-interchange-open

[SP Cook]

This interchange still doesn't make a lot of sense if it's just going to a mall.  Chaplin Rd up North seems like it could take that traffic.  Maybe add a second right turn lane to University Town Center, but that's it.

If they built something to the West of the interchange I could see it being needed, but it's so hilly there anyways it hardly seems worth it to try to build anything.

WVU maintains that its athletic program is "self-supporting".  This is false according to the annual USA Today survey and according to the state budget digest, but it a constant drumbeat from the WVU media.  When it joined the "Big"  12 conference, its baseball field was inadequate.  It also "borrowed" $10M from the state and $10M from its own endowment to pay for the move.  Money which will never be paid back.  It thus had no money to build a ball park or anything else.

So they came up with this suddenly needed exit.   World had been going fine for 40 years, but suddenly this exit was needed.  If you look at the topo maps, you will see a HUGE amount of material to be removed.  State entered into a "waste agreement" to dump this material over the hill.  When the "waste" was over the place looked a whole lot like bowl into which you could build a baseball park.  Which was then done with sales tax money taken from general revenue.  Yep, they converted gas tax money into a sports field. 

[wphiii]

I won't pretend to really know the bigger picture cost-benefit analysis of building this interchange, but I can tell you from extensive personal experience that the traffic situation before and after Black Bears games had been an absolute nightmare, so I'm selfishly very glad this interchange exists now.

[Bitmapped]

Exit 153 is a full diamond interchange. There is a roundabout for southbound on/off ramps on the west side of the interchange.

A large series of commercial and industrial developments is going in to the west of the interchange.

[Bitmapped]

This interchange still doesn't make a lot of sense if it's just going to a mall.  Chaplin Rd up North seems like it could take that traffic.  Maybe add a second right turn lane to University Town Center, but that's it.

If they built something to the West of the interchange I could see it being needed, but it's so hilly there anyways it hardly seems worth it to try to build anything.

WVU maintains that its athletic program is "self-supporting".  This is false according to the annual USA Today survey and according to the state budget digest, but it a constant drumbeat from the WVU media.  When it joined the "Big"  12 conference, its baseball field was inadequate.  It also "borrowed" $10M from the state and $10M from its own endowment to pay for the move.  Money which will never be paid back.  It thus had no money to build a ball park or anything else.

So they came up with this suddenly needed exit.   World had been going fine for 40 years, but suddenly this exit was needed.  If you look at the topo maps, you will see a HUGE amount of material to be removed.  State entered into a "waste agreement" to dump this material over the hill.  When the "waste" was over the place looked a whole lot like bowl into which you could build a baseball park.  Which was then done with sales tax money taken from general revenue.  Yep, they converted gas tax money into a sports field. 

West Virginia's budget digest was eliminated in 2006 (https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1059&dat=20060308&id=NPIyAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dQ4GAAAAIBAJ&pg=1374,653869&hl=en). WVU Athletics received a direct subsidy in the state budget for its rifle team prior to FY2016, although it no longer does (http://www.budget.wv.gov/approvedbudget/Pages/default.aspx). WVU Athletics does receive a large amount of revenue in the form of mandatory WVU student fees.

The stadium and interchange were constructed by Monongalia County using funds from a sales tax and property tax TIF district. The county issued bonds and money from the TIF district is pledged to pay off the bonds. WVU leases the stadium from the county (http://www.wvusports.com/blogs.cfm?blog=baseballBlog&story=24996).

Construction of the baseball stadium largely predates the interchange. The stadium was done by the time any significant earthmoving began for the interchange.

[SP Cook]

The Budget Digest PROCESS has been eliminated.  This was a state version of pork.  In the actual budget it reads things like "$800M to DOT", then the legislature would write the digest to say things like "DOT should spend $4M on Route 5 in Clay County".  It technically had no legal effect, but was almost always followed.   However, the detailed list of what is spent is also called the Budget Digest, and is printed every year.  You can even look up a particular person's salary.  It is just a post-audit report.  We are using the same term for two different things.  There most certainly is a post-audit Budget Digest.  I have a copy.

WVU athletics charges off 1000 things, including all of its facilities to the general school budget.  In other words, for one example, if you assume that the stadium just fell from the sky, and that zero dollars were spent on its upkeep, then ...  That is, of course, voodoo economics.  The stadium, and all the rest, cost taxpayers millions and millions are spent on their upkeep.  But even leaving that aside and accepting that rediculious claim,  USA Today correctly reports that WVU LOST $3,258,092 in FY 15, which was "borrowed" from the general fund (meaning from the taxpayers) where like all previous year's losses it will eventually be written off.  And USAToday correctly reports that WVU recieved 4.86% of its budget or $4,403,165 from state subsidy.  Again this is NOT including the voodoo economics of assuming a zero cost basis on facilities and so-called "shared services".

The only schools that receive no state subsidy are Texas A&M, Texas, Ohio State, LSU, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Penn State, Kentucky, Arkansas, South Carolina, Nebraska, and Purdue, again from the extensive and accurate USA Today report.  WVU is light years below any of those schools in national significance.

As to this phony TIF.  First understand what a TIF is.  Somebody has a field,  Generates esentually no taxes.  So somebody builds a tax generating thing in the field.  Say a mall.  The state agrees that the incremental increase in taxes for a certain time will go to pay for the tax generating thing's construction.  Simple.  It is a win-win, because but for the TIF the thing would still be a field, so the taxes are "new money" anyway.

And a third grader can see the hole in the false claim that the WVU baseball park is a legal TIF.  WVU does not pay taxes.  The taxes paid by the Black Bears would take centuries to pay off.  What they did was take money from an unrelated strip mall's sales tax and use it to pay for a baseball park.  In other words, sales tax money that would and should have gone into the general pot for statewide use went to pay for this ballpark.  They might as well have said that the sale tax generated at a Target store in Weirton is a "TIF" and pays for the ballpark. 

No, sales tax money paid for the ballpark.  Just as tax money has paid, when you see through the accounting tricks, for every venue WVU has.

And, that is not unique to WVU.  WVU athletics costs the taxpayers about $12M to $14M per year.  About what other schools of that level cost.  What is unique is the contrortions that WVU and its fans go to to deny it.