West Virginia Turnpike

[Dirt Roads]

You might want to check your facts.  While the cities of Charleston and Huntington are in decline, Putnam County has more than doubled in population since I-64 was built.  I-64 was grossly over capacity and the six lane upgrade is badly needed.  The first upgrade, which extended six lanes from South Charleston to Nitro, ended a DAILY complete stop situation at rush hour and reduced accident levels.  The current section, from Nitro to Scott Depot, again, is a DAILY complete stop situation.  The six lane upgrade is badly needed.

As to the Turnpike being the state's "marque" highway, umm, why?  I-64 between Huntington and Charleston is the busiest road in the state by far.

To that end, just before WVDOH began any widening along I-64, the (then) fourlane section between Cross Lanes -and- Institute ranked in the national Top Ten for Peak VPHPL (vehicles per hour per lane).  (Not sure why this section was higher than the adjacent Institute -to- Dunbar). 

No wonder, as this section of I-64 carries a bunch of lower-case "interstate" regional routings (none of which are huge, but you get the point): 

• St. Louis/Louisville -to- Richmond/Tidewater
• St. Louis/Louisville -to- Charlotte Metrolina
• St. Louis/Louisville -to- Raleigh/Durham
• Cincinnati -to- all three of these destinations
• Detroit/Toledo/Columbus -to- all three of these destinations

Not to mention that both the Tri-Cities (Huntington/Ashland/Ironton) and Charleston/Kanawha Valley still have active industrial complexes that shove more than their fair share of truckers onto I-64.

[Rothman]

Putnam County has under 60,000 people.  There are Interstates that pass communities with more people than that with only two lanes in each direction that do just fine...

[GCrites]

I've noticed it really is a matter of perspective. Ohio has suburbs that have more people than Charleston yet people in New York City see the entire state of Ohio as insignificant. Like how everyone in West Virgina knows where Gilbert is even though it only has 500 people.

One of the main ideas behind metrics is to eliminate perspective and think in terms of cold hard numbers.