CHARLESTON, WV – A connector road between Kanawha County’s Trace Fork Shopping Center and Jefferson Road is among 32 projects in a bid letting conducted by West Virginia Division of Highways on Tuesday, Sept. 14, 2021.
The project will be paid for with funding from Gov. Jim Justice’s Roads to Prosperity highway construction and maintenance program.
WVDOH is reviewing the bids and hopes to award contracts for these projects soon.
The project will build a roughly half-mile connector road between RHL Boulevard near the South Charleston Memorial Ice Arena and Jefferson Road, and includes a 420-foot bridge. The connector road is being built in conjunction with an ongoing widening project on Jefferson Road.
“In a lot of ways, it’s even more important than the Jefferson Road project,” said West Virginia Department of Transportation Deputy Secretary Jimmy Wriston. The project will provide an additional access point for the Trace Fork Shopping Center, providing direct access to Jefferson Road and alleviating congestion on Corridor G, which backs up at the shopping center during the holiday shopping season
Both projects are designed to work together to ease congestion on both Corridor G and Jefferson Road.
“We look forward to getting that project complete,” Wriston said. “It will be a great benefit to the people in that area.”
Several factors are considered before awarding a bid, including whether a bid falls above or below the WVDOH Engineer’s Estimate and by what percentage. In cases where a bid is above the Engineer’s Estimate, WVDOH must consider the project need, repercussions of not awarding the project, additional funding sources, and whether or not sufficient reasons exist for the differences in estimates. Most projects are reviewed, analyzed, and awarded within a week of the bid letting, but the process can take longer.