Editor,
Infrastructure has been at the center of the political conversation in West Virginia and across the country. With Senator Joe Manchin’s newfound influence as a Washington powerbroker and Senator Shelley Moore Capito’s leadership on a counter proposal to the Biden Administration’s high-dollar infrastructure plan, the Mountain State is in a lucrative position to benefit.
Recently, Speaker Roger Hanshaw formed a workgroup tasked with looking at projects for a ‘Coal Communities Comeback’. The devastation from the decline in coal mining jobs is more evident in Southern West Virginia than anywhere else in the United States. However, the proposed Interstate 73 expansion could provide a foundation for future economic development in the region.
Interstate 73 is intended to run from Michigan all the way to every mountaineer’s favorite vacation destination, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. In recent years, the focus of I-73 development has been in North Carolina but with the newfound interest in infrastructure it is time this project gets another chance here in West Virginia. Many counties in the Southern part of the state are just beginning to see their first four-lane road with the new construction on the Coalfields Expressway, though a major interstate would bring about a new day for the people living in the once-booming coalfields.
Make no mistake about it, this interstate expansion is not the be-all, end-all of economic development but it could be a great start. And maybe, just maybe, it can be the ‘Hillbilly Highway’ back home.
Nathaniel A. Burdette
Charleston