Gov. Jim Justice issued an update earlier this week on the amount of secondary road maintenance work that has been completed across West Virginia since he directed the Department of Transportation to make road maintenance its top priority last month.
“We’ve got so much good stuff going on now it’s unbelievable,” Justice said. “We have people all over the state working like crazy, and the amount of work we’ve been able to accomplish in such a short time makes me very proud.”
Justice was joined by Transportation Secretary Byrd White and acting Commissioner of Highways Jimmy Wriston for a press conference in the Governor’s Reception Room of the State Capitol to announce the progress.
“I am confident that we have more maintenance work going on right now, today, than any other time in our history,” Wriston said. “I can tell you we’ve never had an April like this, ever.”
Over the past month alone, crews with the Division of Highways have completed more than 2,000 road miles of ditching and blading and have prepared more than 148,000 feet of pipe culverts and ditchline obstacles.
Crews with the DOH have also poured over 16,000 tons of asphalt for patching and related maintenance work. Meanwhile, more than 150,000 employee-hours have been spent on other types of maintenance.
You can view these and additional secondary roadwork statistics on the DOT’s website. These figures will be updated on a weekly basis.
“The bottom line is that we did exactly what Governor Justice told us to do,” Wriston said. “We went back to our roots, we went back to our work ethic …and this is the result and you’re just going to see these numbers grow all summer long.”
DOT leaders also announced that they have gone through the original list of suggested road maintenance projects – turned in by district managers and county supervisors last month – and have now reorganized it into a new, prioritized list of projects that they intend to complete as soon as possible.
This new list of high-priority secondary roads projects has been broken down by county and is also available to be viewed on the DOT’s website. Follow this link to see Greenbrier County: https://transportation.wv.gov/Documents/Prioritized%20Maintenance%20Projects%20by%20County/Greenbrier%20County.pdf.
“Now we’re really moving and we’re just going to start moving even faster as the weather gets better,” Gov. Justice said. “At the end of the day – I keep saying it – we’re going to fix the damn roads, that’s all there is to it.”