Take a drive down any interstate in West Virginia and chances are you won't be going 70 mph for long. State Transportation Secretary Paul Mattox says this is one busy summer for interstate construction.
"The interstate system is more than 50-years-old now. There's a lot of need to take care of the bridges as well as the paving that we all drive on,” Mattox said.
If you head north on I-79, for example, you'll find more than a half-dozen bridge projects between Charleston and Clarksburg alone. "We're going in and putting latex modified concrete on some of the old bridge decks on the interstate systems,” Mattox said. “So there are a number of bridge projects."
Mattox stresses the work isn't just in one area of the state. All the interstates in West Virginia are getting some updates. "We spread the stimulus money statewide. And primarily the interstate system received quite a bit of that funding,” he said.
Stimulus projects not completed last year are getting done this summer. Sec. Mattox says it's good for the roads, it's good for employment and it's good for the economy. "It’s more than 500 million dollars worth of work that we're going to let this calendar year alone,” he said. “That will make four or five years in a row that we've let more than 500 million dollars in construction work."
You'll need to have some patience when traveling on the interstates. Speed limits are reduced to 55 mph in construction zones. And just a reminder, fines are doubled if you're caught going over the posted limit