Thursday, September 17, 2009

Sen. Byrd secures additional $4.5 million in funding for Corridor H

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Sen. Robert C. Byrd, D-W.Va., has secured  an additional $4.5 million in the FY 2010 Transportation and Housing and Urban Development, and Related Agencies (THUD) Appropriations bill for Corridor H.

Corridor H remains the only unfinished corridor highway in West Virginia as part of the Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS). Corridor H in West Virginia is planned to stretch from I-79 at Weston through the Potomac Highlands to the Virginia state line.

“Corridor H is my transportation crusade,” Byrd said in a prepared statement. “This is the only uncompleted ADHS corridor in West Virginia and it is my mission to see that it is completed. This additional funding contributes to that mission.”

Nearly 66 miles of the corridor in West Virginia have been completed and are open to traffic. An additional 23 miles are under construction and a 19-mile segment is under final design and awaiting funding. The $4.5 million added by Byrd would be used primarily for work on the roadway between Bismarck and Forman, West Virginia. To date Byrd has secured over $350 million in past appropriations bills for Corridor H construction. The State also receives annual ADHS formula funding as a result of Byrd’s efforts in past transportation authorization measures.

Byrd also applauded the completion of a 7-mile segment and the recently completed bridge over the South Branch of the Potomac today, as well as the groundbreaking for a new ten- mile segment of Corridor H, which will connect the western edge of the Moorefield Bridge to Patterson Creek Road and Forman, West Virginia.

In a new development, which could help accelerate additional funding for Corridor H, Byrd, who is the senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee and also a member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Transportation, also had language inserted into the FY 2010 Transportation Appropriations bill which would require the Departments of Transportation and Homeland Security to examine whether Corridor H could be designated as a major evacuation route for the Washington, DC metropolitan area in the event of an all-hazards disaster.

The language Byrd included states, “The [Appropriations] Committee recognizes that the success of all-hazards mass evacuations from major metropolitan areas is dependent on safe and high-capacity highways and bridges. The Committee directs the Department of Transportation (DOT), in cooperation with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), to assess the mass evacuation plans for the country’s most high-threat, high-density areas and identify and prioritize current deficiencies on the recommended evacuation routes that could impede evacuations if not addressed. Further, for the National Capital Region (NCR), the Committee directs the DOT and DHS, in coordination with the Office of the National Capital Region Coordination, to conduct an analysis of how national highway system projects currently under construction to the west of the NCR could increase the NCR’s evacuation capacity and provide a detailed plan to accelerate such highway projects. The Department shall submit its report to the Committee on Appropriations no later than 120 days after the enactment of this Act.”

“Addressing the transportation needs of this country has been part of my life’s work,” said Byrd. "While serving in the House of Representatives, I cast my vote in favor of establishing the Interstate Highway System back in 1958. I was serving in the Senate when the idea of creating a highway system for the 13 Appalachian states came to fruition with the passage the Appalachian Regional Development Act. As a member of the Senate Appropriation Committee, I have steered millions of dollars towards the completion of the part of the ADHS in West Virginia, and advocated for the entire system’s completion.”

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