West Virginia

[Dirt Roads]

...and remove the structurally deficient circa-1965 bridge.

We lived in Dunbar at the time this section of I-64 was constructed.  We were all surprised that the State Road Commission built this interchange on WV-25, because we were expecting the same exact thing as the original St. Albans exit (Exit 44, then WV-17) that was constructed just a few years prior.  The original St. Albans exit came down to Route 17 roughly the same way it does today, with a T-bone intersection with a left-lane for northbound and a right-lane for southbound. It originally had a heart-shaped off-ramp/on-ramp for I-64 westbound where the OFF-RAMP had the stop sign to allow on-ramp traffic to make the left turn unimpeded. 

Good thing that Exit 50 wasn't designed this way.  When Scott Depot exit traffic got heavier in the late 1960s, the off-ramp traffic would occasionally backup onto the "Green Bridge" over the Kanawha River, even though there was hardly any on-ramp traffic heading westbound.

Anywhoosit, even though Exit 50 has always been signed for Institute (named after West Virginia State, our local historically-Black college), this exit has always served as the main exit for Nitro residents.  Thus, for a while this now-deficient bridge over WV-25 made Nitro feel like it was one of the more important cities in the Kanawha Valley.