MARTINSBURG - West Virginia plans to widen Interstate 81 from Exit 23 to the Potomac River in conjunction with Maryland rebuilding the I-81 Potomac River bridges, which also will be widened to accommodate three lanes of traffic, according to information revealed at Wednesday's meeting of the Hagerstown Eastern Panhandle Metropolitan Planning Organization.
"The highway contract will be bundled with the bridge contract," Perry Keller, West Virginia Department of Transportation's representative to the MPO, said after the meeting. "Maryland will handle the contract and pay for the construction. West Virginia will review all the plans and reimburse Maryland for its share."
It was announced in October that Maryland would rebuild the Potomac River bridges and that West Virginia would share in the costs of that construction project as part of an agreement between the two states that dates from the construction of the bridge in 1965.
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West Virginia plans to widen Interstate 81 from Exit 23 to the Potomac River in conjunction with Maryland rebuilding the I-81 Potomac River bridges.
West Virginia is responsible for about 27 percent of the cost of the bridge and Maryland is responsible for the remainder.
"It's not a total bridge replacement," David Buck, a spokesman for Maryland State Highway Administration, told The Journal in October. "The piers are fine, but the surface will be replaced, everything else will be replaced."
West Virginia also will review all the engineering plans for the bridge construction.
West Virginia's share of the bridge replacement is projected to be a little more than $16 million. Maryland's share would be about $45 million.
The cost of adding another lane to the northbound and southbound lanes for the about three miles of I-81 between the Marlowe/Falling Waters interchange and the river is projected to be about $8.5 million.
"State management has agreed to do this, but no memorandum of understanding (between West Virginia and Maryland) has been signed yet," Keller said. "We have agreed in principle. We hope we can begin construction in 2016."
West Virginia's portion of the bridge project and the I-81 widening project had to be added to the MPO's Transportation Improvement Program for the 2012-15 fiscal years. Highway projects that receive federal funding must be approved by the MPO.
The projects are to be funded with state money and funds from the National Highway Performance Program of the Federal Highway Administration.
The Hagerstown Eastern Panhandle Metropolitan Planning Organization is the federal- and state-designated regional transportation planning body for the urbanized areas in Berkeley and Jefferson counties and Washington County, according to its website.
It coordinates the federally mandated transportation planning process in the Hagerstown-Martinsburg Urbanized Area, a designation resulting from the 1990, 2000 and 2010 censuses, according to the website.
The Interstate Council of the HEP MPO is the decision-making body of the organization. The group is comprised of representatives of the respective state departments of transportation, public transit operators and local elected officials, according to the website.
Maryland's bridge project had already been included in the Transportation Improvement Program.
Interstate Council Chairman Martin Brubaker, a Hagerstown city councilman, proposed that the MPO send a letter to the appropriate offices in the Maryland Department of Transportation notifying them that the MPO had approved the additions to the Transportation Improvement Program and express the MPO's concerns about traffic tapering, that is going from three lanes to two lanes, at the construction site.
"I would like them to consider widening I-81 to Interstate 70," Brubaker said. "We're not suggesting where to get the money and we'd never suggest taking money from other projects in Washington County, but can they find a way to fund widening I-81 to I-70?"
Members of the Interstate Council unanimously approved a motion to send such a letter to Maryland DOT officials.
Maryland recently completed a $3.5 million study to reconstruct the 12-mile I-81 corridor through Washington County from the West Virginia state line to the Pennsylvania state line, according to the Maryland SHA website.
The study recommends widening the highway to six lanes, as well as realigning some interchanges and extending a collector-distributor road in the Halfway Boulevard area.
Rebuilding the Potomac River bridges would be the first construction project recommended by the study.
- Staff writer John McVey can be reached at 304-263-3381, ext. 128.
