MARTINSBURG — It was 5:45, the start of another Friday night in Inwood, and already traffic was stretched out as far as the eye could see.
More than a dozen cars sat bumper to bumper, waiting for their turn at the four-way stop leading to southbound Interstate 81. As one car pulled off, another joined the line, with still more vehicles slowly crawling down W.Va. 51 to join the waiting game.
The backup didn’t stop there. As a string of cars waited in line at a traffic light near the town’s Centra Bank, drivers watched as the device turned green, then red, then green, then red again. Still, they waited in place without having made their left hand turn to head down W.Va. 51.
“It sucks... It’s horrible,” Jeff Horn said of the backup, which is an almost daily occurrence in the growing community. Horn lives in Martinsburg but works in Inwood. He said that whenever possible, he tries to avoid the town’s most congested intersections by taking alternate routes.
He’s not the only one who takes this approach to travelling through the Southern Berkeley County community. “I try to avoid it as much as possible,” said Risa Barton.
Despite the growing number of people who are finding other routes, though, the West Virginia Department of Transportation reports that 18,500 cars per day travel Inwood’s roadways during peak hours. Those numbers were tabulated in 2005, and residents say congestion has only increased since then.
Traffic problems in the area continue to grow, as more and more residents move to the area. When the Department of Transportation took traffic counts on the town’s roadways just three years earlier in 2002, officials reported that only 11,000 cars travelled the same stretch of W.Va. 51 leading to I-81.
The rising numbers of both residents and drivers has translated into serious growing pains for the community’s infrastructure.
In addition to counting the number of cars that travel local roadways, the Department of Transportation also analyzes traffic flow at area intersections. The intersections are then given a Level of Service rating ranging from A to F. Reports show that at least one of Inwoods intersections received a grade of F when these figures were last calculated.
Travis Miller of the department’s traffic engineering division said Inwood’s four-way stop received a grade of F for traffic flowing from W.Va. 51 to I-81 Northbound. Traffic flow heading towards Northbound I-81 at the intersection earned a C rating, he said. The nearby intersection of U.S. 11 and W.Va. 51, also received a C rating for both northbound and southbound traffic.
Sharing Inwood’s Pain
While Inwood has become the poster child for the recent strains on Berkeley County’s infrastructure, the town is not the only one with traffic congestion. The intersection of U.S. 11 and W.Va. 901 also earned a rating of C from the department. The intersection of U.S. 11 and W. Va. 9 earned an F during a 2003 study. The intersections of I-81 and W.Va. 901 earned Cs, the agency reported.
Miller said that in his opinion, a Level of Service rating D can be considered acceptable, though a C is preferred. Higher ratings, he said, are not easily attained.
“With traffic volumes continually growing, especially in the Eastern Panhandle, LOS A is not practical at most locations,” he said in an e-mail, adding that, “Due to budgetary and manpower constraints the DOH has to focus on areas that operate at the worst LOS to make them operate at acceptable levels.”
Some changes, he noted, are planned to help ease some of Inwood’s problems. Traffic lights are being designed at the interchange between W.Va. 51 and I-81. Eventually, the department also hopes to widen the bridge at this location to provide for additional traffic, Miller said.
In all, the agency’s six-year construction plan includes nearly 40 roadway improvement projects in Berkeley County. The bulk of these come in the form of roadway resurfacing projects, bridge improvements and the addition of extra lanes to existing roadways.
Such projects don’t come cheap though. For instance, a 0.45 mile stretch of Grade Road is slated for expansion to four lanes in 2008, with a bridget there also planned for construction. The project alone is expected to cost the agency $4.3 million. In 2009, the agency plans to spend $5.5 million to widen and replace a bridge along I-81 in Marlowe. Two new turning lanes along W.Va. 51 in Inwood, meanwhile, are expected to cost a total of $520,000.
These and other projects throughout the state add up to major financial obligations that are becoming increasingly difficult to meet, officials with the agency said.
“There are a ton of projects, and it’s forced us to prioritize,” said DOH employee, Brent Walker. “We’re just not getting the dollars we have in the past.”
The department is expecting nearly $583 million in revenues in 2007. Still, those figures might not be enough to support the state’s infrastructure, according to a 2004 study by West Virginia University, which indicated that at least one of the revenue sources for the State Road Fund will need to increase in order for the department to continue adequately maintaining West Virginia’s road system.
The state is one of four in which counties and towns have no control over road construction and maintenance, leaving West Virginia’s Department of Transportation in charge of a reported 36,000 miles of roadway.
An agency report shows that funding for maintenance and construction of these roads comes from three major sources. Money for the State Road Fund is generated through registration fees on vehicles, taxes charged when new vehicles are purchased, and a $0.31 tax that is charged on each gallon of gasoline purchased in West Virginia.
More than half of the money the agency receives is spent on existing roads and other costs, though, leaving little for new projects. The agency’s six-year plan projects that $101 million will be spent in 2007 on administrative support and payments on the agency’s debts. An additional $241 million is expected to go towards routine maintenance on existing roads.
The department has been forced to prioritize the new projects it constructs with its remaining funds. Near the top of this list, is West Virginia’s Appalachian Development Highway System, which is expected to require $1.1 billion and nearly 30 years to complete. The agency also lists priorities in the Eastern Panhandle in its six-year plan. Officials anticipate spending an estimated $133 million to continue expansions of W.Va. 9 and complete a section of the road spanning from Martinsburg to Charles Town, among other things, the report shows.
Still, these projects don’t help solve the problems facing drivers stuck in Inwood’s Friday night traffic. That, area leaders say, could be a difficult problem to solve.
Fixing the Problem
Berkeley County Commissioner Ron Collins recently moved from Inwood to neighboring Gerrardstown to escape the congestion of his long-time home. Now, there are plans for a new development in Gerrardstown that could house as many as 9,000 additional residents.
These days, Collins is not very optimistic about finding a solution to the infrastructure problems facing the county’s southern region.
“I don’t see any (solution) at all. ... If I had the answer to that, I would retire. I don’t think it can be fixed in the present condition the roads are in,” Collins said Thursday.
He said that earlier officials had hoped to construct a bypass to help ease the area’s congestion. Now, the land where that road would have been built has been filled by nearly 60 new homes, he said.
Donald Fox, president of the Berkeley County Planning Commission said there could be a solution, though. He is eyeing local control of roadway construction as a possible solution to the problem.
“It (the solution) is getting road building authority back at the county level,” Fox said this week. “Without that, we can’t do any real planning. If we don’t have the roads under control, we don’t have anything under control.”
During the 2007 legislative session, a bill was introduced that would have accomplished this task. Known as the Community Empowerment Transportation Act, or CETA, the legislation aimed to let communities have a larger say in road construction and funding.
Introduced by Sen. John Unger, D-Berkeley, the bill would have let county commissions from throughout the state prioritize certain projects and move forward with their funding and construction. Local leaders would have been able to approach the Commissioner of Highways to ask for permission to move forward with certain projects. From there, residents would have been able to vote on whether or not a bond should be issued for the construction, much like they do when a new school is built.
“I think that CETA is a good first step. It’s not going to solve all our problems,” Unger said. “This will not be the only thing we ought to do, but it’s a good start.”
In addition to putting road construction back in local hands, he said the legislation would have also created a new funding source for highway projects. As gas prices increase and more drivers turn to hybrid cars, revenues from the state’s gas tax could start to decrease, he said. Creating a way to finance road projects through local bonds and Tax Increment Financing, he noted, could help get around that problem.
“CETA will allow us to try innovative financing methods, versus relying on the old gas tax alone to solve all our problems,” Unger said.
The bill earned approval in the Senate last year, but was not taken up in the state’s House of Delegates. This year, Unger said he is optimistic that the legislation could garner the support it needs to move forward.