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[Dirt Roads]

Another one from the Corridor H thread:

Will we ever see significant improvements to the WV 2 corridor, or will West Virginia just let Ohio handle that via OH 7?

Moundsville to Chester is a slog on the east side of the river, but is much better on the Buckeye side.

On my last major trip along that corridor, I was trying to make the best possible time to my overnight destination in western Pennsylvania. I took WV 2 all the way to St. Marys, then crossed over and used OH 7 the rest of the way, especially since I was going to have to cross the river to East Liverpool anyway.

It been a long time since I worked in that area, but I seriously doubt it.  When asked a similar question about WV-2 between Ravenswood and Parkersburg, then Governor-elect Jay Rockefeller promised to build a four-lane road between the two locations.  This promise was fulfilled by upgrading WV-56 (which was about 4 miles long) and rerouting WV-2 over that road and I-77.  West Virginia doesn't have much highway money and its hard to justify any upgrades when there's a nice parallel highway right across the river.  There's been a number of times that I've needed to use OH-7 when I would have preferred to stay on the West Virginia side.

[SP Cook]

Rockefailure promised a lot of things, but the “four lane Route 2” accomplished by moving some signs was among the most cynical.

I have heard nothing relative to significant changes to WV 2, other than a very long term goal of a bridge to Ohio at the end of WV 193.

[Bitmapped]

Moving WV 2 onto I-77 was the smart thing to do. There's no need to have duplicate 4-lane corridors less than 10 miles apart on the same side of the river, especially when there is nothing of consequence between Ravenswood and Parkersburg.

WVDOH is slowly upgrading WV 2 to 5 lanes (including a center turn lane) between Parkersburg and Wheeling. Some projects have been built south of Moundsville, with a project currently underway in Wetzel County. There has also been some movement building north from I-77, but it's going to take a long time.

There is a project underway or coming soon to realign WV 2 through New Cumberland to eliminate the tight turns. Obviously, the Wellsburg Bridge is also under construction to provide better connectivity to OH 7.

In short, it seems like the strategy is to upgrade Parkersburg to Wheeling to 4 lanes, since OH 7 there is mostly not, and leave Wheeling north as-is. This largely makes sense - WV 2 would be hard to upgrade and OH 7 is mostly a freeway across the river. I haven't heard anything about work between Ravenswood and Huntington.

[SP Cook]

Moving WV 2 onto I-77 was the smart thing to do. There's no need to have duplicate 4-lane corridors less than 10 miles apart on the same side of the river, especially when there is nothing of consequence between Ravenswood and Parkersburg.

It would have been “smart” had there been any actual plan to build a 4 lane of WV 2 either north or south of its multiplex with I 77.  There was not, it was just a cynical political move.  IIRC they actually had a ribbon cutting.  For moving a sign.

[Dirt Roads]

Moving WV 2 onto I-77 was the smart thing to do. There's no need to have duplicate 4-lane corridors less than 10 miles apart on the same side of the river, especially when there is nothing of consequence between Ravenswood and Parkersburg.

It would have been “smart” had there been any actual plan to build a 4 lane of WV 2 either north or south of its multiplex with I 77.  There was not, it was just a cynical political move.  IIRC they actually had a ribbon cutting.  For moving a sign.

At the time, the vision was a major industrial corridor with river/rail/highway access along several stretches of the Ohio River between Ravenswood and Little Washington (West Virginia).  I'm pretty sure that Jay Rockefeller understood that vision, but he was saddled with huge escalation and inflation of the 1970s.  Not to mention the pressure of completing the Interstate system.  I don't believe that the Rockefeller administration did anything wrong here, but most folks in the Ohio Valley came away with the same impression that SP Cook has (ergo, political grandstanding).

[SkyPesos]

OH 7's AADT between Moundsville and East Liverpool is less than 20k in both directions for almost all of the way, so I don't really see a need upgrading WV 2 across the river as well as of now.

[GCrites80s]

This kind of reminds me of OH-104 vs. U.S. 23 along the Scioto river. A Junior-Senior situation.

[hbelkins]

This kind of reminds me of US-23 vs. OH-104 along the Scioto river. A Junior-Senior situation.

Got told once that you could actually make better time between Chillicothe and the Ohio River on 104 vs. 23 because it went through fewer towns and places with stoplights, despite being a two-lane road on a worse alignment. That was working out well for me until I got pulled over by an Ohio state trooper. He told me I wasn't driving at an unsafe speed, but I was still far enough over the limit that he would have to write me a ticket. That's when I invested in my Valentine One.