WHEELING, W.Va. (WTRF) – Governor Jim Justice commemorated the completion of the I-70 bridges project.
Although the project was actually finished in late December, the Governor, the West Virginia Highway Commissioner and city officials held a ceremonial ribbon cutting on the patio of Wesbanco Arena on Friday overlooking the Ohio River, with the Fort Henry Bridge in the background.
They admitted that many people had doubts that such a mammoth project could go smoothly.
Well, we all thought, well, impossible, impossible. We all thought maybe it was gonna take forever and traffic was gonna be crazy and everything under the sun. At the end of the day, we are so good in this state, it’s unbelievable, if you just unleash us.
Governor Jim Justice, (R) West Virginia
I can say that the naysayers weren’t without merit because of the fiasco that was the Wheeling Tunnel project 15 years ago. So, we did our best to cross all our T’s, dot all our I’s, make sure everything was in order. We tried to communicate as best we could throughout the project.
Tony Clark, West Virginia Division of Highways District Engineer
It went exceptionally well. We had a lot of concerns going into this project and a lot of people up here in Wheeling had a lot of concerns, but engineers did their job. We did our job on the front end. We communicated.
Jimmy Wriston, West Virginia Highway Commissioner
The cost of the project was $221 million.
At its height, the project involved 295 workers. 24 bridges were rehabilitated. Two of them were rebuilt completely.
Most of it was accomplished while traffic was maintained.
The project started in August 2019 and was completed in about three years.
Swank Construction was praised for their outstanding work, and for devoting all their resources to this one massive project.
