West Virginia

[PColumbus73]

What can WV do with the terrain and skewed intersections?

[Bitmapped]

What can WV do with the terrain and skewed intersections?

What do you mean by skewed intersections?

[GCrites]

Intersections where the roads meet at angles other than 90 degrees.

[Beltway]

Intersections where the roads meet at angles other than 90 degrees.

Especially at an acute angle such as 50 or 60 degrees, i.e. 30 to 40 degrees from a right angle.

[The_Ginger]

Intersections where the roads meet at angles other than 90 degrees.

Especially at an acute angle such as 50 or 60 degrees, i.e. 30 to 40 degrees from a right angle.

Like here, for instance.

[Beltway]

Intersections where the roads meet at angles other than 90 degrees.

Especially at an acute angle such as 50 or 60 degrees, i.e. 30 to 40 degrees from a right angle.

Like here, for instance.

Bad roadway design

[NE2]

How to fix it: https://www.google.com/maps/@37.2812646,-81.2879919,3a,15y,59.23h,88.54t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1selK4jn6LM6L1ANOD3TkV2A!2e0!6shttps:%2F%2Fstreetviewpixels-pa.googleapis.com%2Fv1%2Fthumbnail%3Fcb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile%26w%3D900%26h%3D600%26pitch%3D1.4562577508053778%26panoid%3DelK4jn6LM6L1ANOD3TkV2A%26yaw%3D59.22986042521503!7i16384!8i8192

[Bitmapped]

Intersections where the roads meet at angles other than 90 degrees.

Especially at an acute angle such as 50 or 60 degrees, i.e. 30 to 40 degrees from a right angle.

Like here, for instance.

You fix it by some combination of blasting back the hillside or installing fill so the side road can have a 90-degree curve and meet the main road at something closer to 90 degrees. Those sorts of projects are let from time to time, but they're expensive and there are generally higher priorities for available funding.

In much of the southern part of the state, like in the US 52/WV 16 example, there's little developable land to begin with so takings of what is available were seen as undesirable. Fixing that intersection would likely require demolishing the stadium at the bottom of the valley, which was in use until 2020. Introducing back-to-back 90-degree turns for coal truck traffic isn't great, either.

[seicer]

And in this case, most traffic is turning right, as most left-turning traffic will have taken SR 83 and 80.

[The_Ginger]

The WVDOH Star City interchange project is looking more certain as this Facebook post from the Division informs the platform about the project.


https://www.facebook.com/WVDOT/posts/the-wvdots-star-city-interchange-improvement-project-is-officially-moving-forwar/1385524460284995/

Surprisingly, the comments are for the new interchange, rather than against. That was a surprise for me!

[Bitmapped]

The WVDOH Star City interchange project is looking more certain as this Facebook post from the Division informs the platform about the project.


https://www.facebook.com/WVDOT/posts/the-wvdots-star-city-interchange-improvement-project-is-officially-moving-forwar/1385524460284995/

Surprisingly, the comments are for the new interchange, rather than against. That was a surprise for me!

The current interchange has long delays for traffic turning left off the exit ramps much of the day, both weekdays and weekends. There are temporary signals going in that should help with this, but the current interchange and corridor could use improvements.

That being said, I'm not a fan of the DDI and the other proposed changes here. I think making Chaplin Hill Road a superstreet-like corridor with continuous flow interchanges and/or RCUTs is a cheaper and more effective solution than what DOH is proposing with this DDI and a westbound flyover of US 19.

[seicer]

About time! I just drove this portion of US Route 250 last week, and it was one of the roughest primary roads I've been on in recent memory. Its narrowness also required me to pull over onto the sidewalk or driveway apron several times to allow for trucks to pass.

Widening the <18' roadway (8'11" lanes) to 22' minimum roadway width (11' lanes with 2' to 4' shoulders or 5' sidewalks with a 2' curb/gutter)

Cameron Road Widening Project

The purpose of this project is to provide improvements along a 1.61-mile section of US Route 250 that is in a deteriorated condition and functionally obsolete.

The improvements include:

• Improve Safety for Motorists and Pedestrians
• Narrow travel lanes make it difficult for large trucks to pass safely
• A roadway embankment near the former Cameron High School is eroding and could threaten the roadway
• Replace two box culverts
• Deteriorating  retaining walls create hazards for vehicles and pedestrians

ADA compliance with West Virginia Code (WVC) 17C-13-6 and WVDOT Design Directive DD-811

• The existing sidewalk is below roadway level, narrow, and not ADA-compliant
• Missing curbs and limited shoulders create safety concerns for pedestrians
• Improve congestion/mobility of US Route 250 pedestrians
• A walkway bridge near the culvert is in poor condition and not ADA-compliant
• The corridor carries many vehicle types, including trucks, buses, emergency vehicles, and passenger cars. Improvements will help traffic move more safely and efficiently

[Bitmapped]

About time! I just drove this portion of US Route 250 last week, and it was one of the roughest primary roads I've been on in recent memory. Its narrowness also required me to pull over onto the sidewalk or driveway apron several times to allow for trucks to pass.

I'm glad to see this project because it's a fix for one of the few developed sections of this stretch of US 250, and one that has some of the tightest parts of the alignment. I doubt we'll ever see any improvements extend beyond Cameron, though, at least not to the south. They're not really merited either for the couple hundred cars a day that traverse the road.

US 250 is useless as a route for through traffic between Fairmont and Moundsville. There's basically no traffic between WV 891/Cameron and WV 7. What traffic is there is mostly associated with fracking.

The road alignment between WV 69 at Hundred and Moundsville is poor. North of WV 869, it's passable, winding along ridgetops but at least possible to average 40-45mph on. Between WV 869 and WV 69, it's ridgetops mixed with winding descents into valleys. Heading into Pennsylvania via WV 69/PA 18 and WV 869/PA 21 tends to be a better option for anyone trying to use this as a through route.

[seicer]

I just drove US 250 from SR 88 to Fairmont, and I forgot just how slow and numbing it was. From Wheeling to my campsite near Earnshaw, it was a solid 1.5 hours of twisty two and one-lane driving. I could barely get above 45 MPH.

It seemed that the state did improve US 250 south of Mannington many decades ago, but it's still rough driving.

I was surprised to see AADT counts increase as much, but this is the fracking hotspot for now.

[Bitmapped]

It seemed that the state did improve US 250 south of Mannington many decades ago, but it's still rough driving.

US 250 between Mannington and Fairmont is on its second alignment, built during the 1930s. The parallel road across Buffalo Creek, generally CR 9/1, is the original alignment.

The section between Mannington and WV 891 was largely rebuilt on the existing alignment in the 1920s, basically with some widening and spot improvements to curves and the vertical alignment. From WV 891 into Moundsville was constructed in the early 1940s with some realignments.

[hbelkins]

I went across US 250 once, and wasn't thrilled about it. I drove it again several years later, and it was better than I remembered, but it was still agonizingly slow.

[Beltway]

I just drove US 250 from SR 88 to Fairmont, and I forgot just how slow and numbing it was. From Wheeling to my campsite near Earnshaw, it was a solid 1.5 hours of twisty two and one-lane driving. I could barely get above 45 MPH.

That state was like that all over before there were Interstate and corridor highways.

I recall driving US-60 from the end of I-64 at Sam Black Church to Charleston in 1986. Just like what you said.

[Dirt Roads]

I just drove US 250 from SR 88 to Fairmont, and I forgot just how slow and numbing it was. From Wheeling to my campsite near Earnshaw, it was a solid 1.5 hours of twisty two and one-lane driving. I could barely get above 45 MPH.

That state was like that all over before there were Interstate and corridor highways.

I recall driving US-60 from the end of I-64 at Sam Black Church to Charleston in 1986. Just like what you said.

US-60 in the 1980s was nowhere near as bad as the western section of US-250 today.  Granted, US-60 had lots of tight curves, but it was designed for heavy truck traffic (as best as the DOH could do back then) and had numerous truck lanes and truck pull-off sections that widened the roadbed.  US-250, on the other hand, doesn't have enough room for trucks to stay in their lanes.  Then to top it off, you've got that nasty downgrade into Moundsville that used to be more like city driving along a narrow street on the side of the mountain.

A better comparison is actually on US-250 in Virginia.  The section of US-250 between West Augusta and the West Virginia state line is one of the twistiest is the Old Dominion.  That distance is about 38 miles, which is about the same as the 39 miles between Hundred and Moundsville.  But I don't recall feeling like that section of US-250 up into the Alleghenies was ever so narrow.

[Bitmapped]

A better comparison is actually on US-250 in Virginia.  The section of US-250 between West Augusta and the West Virginia state line is one of the twistiest is the Old Dominion.  That distance is about 38 miles, which is about the same as the 39 miles between Hundred and Moundsville.  But I don't recall feeling like that section of US-250 up into the Alleghenies was ever so narrow.

I'd say that section of US 250 in Virginia is a solid step above the part in West Virginia. There are decent stretches on the Virginia part where you can go 55mph. There really aren't any between Hundred and Moundsville.

[Beltway]

A better comparison is actually on US-250 in Virginia.  The section of US-250 between West Augusta and the West Virginia state line is one of the twistiest is the Old Dominion.  That distance is about 38 miles, which is about the same as the 39 miles between Hundred and Moundsville.  But I don't recall feeling like that section of US-250 up into the Alleghenies was ever so narrow.

I'd say that section of US 250 in Virginia is a solid step above the part in West Virginia. There are decent stretches on the Virginia part where you can go 55mph. There really aren't any between Hundred and Moundsville.

But that has very low volumes. AADT ranging from 380 to 1,100 in Highland County.

US-60 thru WV was the pre-Interstate east-west interstate highway.

[Dirt Roads]

US-60 thru WV was the pre-Interstate east-west interstate highway.

My dad was going up Gauley Mountain on (then) US-21/US-60 in his sister's 1961 Corvair when he missed the downshift and it chunked over into reverse (and amazingly, it ground to a halt and starting squeeling out backwards).  By the time he got it back in gear, he had a big ole' semi in his rear view mirror. 

Back in those days, there were about 15 waterfalls right along US-21/US-60 between Diamond and Chimney Corner.  Once you got to the Gauley Mountain part, not many people would dare take their eyes off the road as they went by.

[Rothman]

US-60 thru WV was the pre-Interstate east-west interstate highway.

My dad was going up Gauley Mountain on (then) US-21/US-60 in his sister's 1961 Corvair when he missed the downshift and it chunked over into reverse (and amazingly, it ground to a halt and starting squeeling out backwards).  By the time he got it back in gear, he had a big ole' semi in his rear view mirror.

Back in those days, there were about 15 waterfalls right along US-21/US-60 between Diamond and Chimney Corner.  Once you got to the Gauley Mountain part, not many people would dare take their eyes off the road as they went by.

What happened to the waterfalls?

[seicer]

Still there. Some are on the roadside; others are a bit of a scramble to get to. I've covered a few of the roadsides here: http://americanbyways.com/

[Dirt Roads]

Back in those days, there were about 15 waterfalls right along US-21/US-60 between Diamond and Chimney Corner.  Once you got to the Gauley Mountain part, not many people would dare take their eyes off the road as they went by.

What happened to the waterfalls?

source: http://gowaterfalling.com

The big one (Cathedral Falls) is still quite an attraction when seasonal rains and snowmelt creates a scene.  But as you can see on the GSV link, it dries up quite a bit nowadays.  Back in my days, it gushed a-plenty (many West Virginians say "gushedt a-fresh") even in the dry seasons.

Many of the others still remain, but they've gotten harder to see as the undergrowth increases.  There was a little bit of discussion on <m.t.r> back in the day, but I'm pretty sure that some of those are long gone.  I've got some theories.  By the late 1940s, mass scale logging was waning in West Virginia but mom-and-pop selective timbering was still thriving (for instance, back in high school my father ran a logging business with his brother to raise his college tuition).  There still weren't a lot of big trees in the New River Gorge (and the eastern Kanawha Valley) back in the 1960s.  The partially-scalped landscape created a lot of extra runoff.  For the record, it was a beautiful sight back in those days (if you had the nerve to take your eyes off the road).

Kinda veering off-discussion:  Nowadays, the Gorge is almost entirely densely forested.  But back as recent as the 1920's, most of Gorge was an industrial mining complex (not just coal) and almost completely devoid of trees.

[The Ghostbuster]

Don't go chasing waterfalls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WEtxJ4-sh4.