The news this week that the Coalfields Expressway project will get $7 million in federal funding couldn’t have come at a better time, the head of the authority overseeing the project said Thursday.
The money will be used to add two more lanes to a nearly 5-mile, two-lane section being constructed between Grundy and Southern Gap in Buchanan County, according to Jonathan Belcher, executive director of the Virginia Coalfields Expressway Authority.
The Virginia Department of Transportation was getting ready to start paving the road, and the paving can now be done as a four-lane, Belcher said.
“We had a window of opportunity,” he said. “If we could get the funding in time, there’s a cost savings of VDOT being able to do the paving of a four-lane compared to them having to go back after it’s built and try to expand it after the fact. So, I think we’re getting more bang for the buck. … I’m just really ecstatic that the funding was made available when it was.”
The money will be combined with $1.75 million, which is the required 20% match that will come from Buchanan County.
For more than 30 years, the Coalfields Expressway was discussed as a way to open an economic lifeline to Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties and connect the communities there. The project was formally announced in 2002, but it wasn’t until November 2023 that its first section, from the Breaks Interstate Park to the Southern Gap industrial park in Buchanan County, opened. Those 2.57 miles of the expressway overlap with 8.7 miles of the U.S. 460/U.S. 121 Corridor Q road project.
The Coalfields Expressway authority was created by the General Assembly in 2017 and it has a 12-member board. No money was designated for the authority, though, and the Virginia Coalfield Economic Development Authority, of which Belcher is executive director, provides staff support pro bono to the board, he said.
The money will mean the Coalfields Expressway, also known as CFX, will be a four-lane road from the town of Grundy to Southern Gap, where it will join the first four-lane section that’s already open, Belcher said.
“Effectively, this now means that except for a couple miles near the Breaks, U.S. 460/121 [the expressway] will now be a four-lane from Kentucky to the town of Grundy,” he said. “Without the work of the CFX Authority and our federal legislators, this would only have been a two-lane with a few truck climbing lanes.”
He thanked U.S. Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats, and U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, who worked with the communities they represent by requesting funding for local projects, also known as earmarks. The money was included in the budget bills signed recently by President Joe Biden, according to a news release from the authority.
The highway must be built in sections as the funding becomes available, which is a big challenge, according to Belcher.
For the first time, however, he said there seems to be real momentum around the project, and it’s important to keep that going.
One unexpected bonus of the expressway that authority officials hadn’t counted on, according to Belcher, was its “remarkable” scenic beauty. Recently, there have been discussions with officials at Breaks Interstate Park and VDOT about finding ways to promote the tourism advantages of the road, he added.
“The way that VDOT has engineered the road and built it was so that it kind of runs along the ridgetops and it’s just really beautiful, and there’s a lot of wildlife on it,” said Belcher, who added that people are now frequently stopping to view the elk herd that has made its home around the roadway.
Recently, VDOT and state wildlife officials have been working to try to protect the elk, after four young elk were struck and killed between Dec. 1 and the middle of January. Last week, VDOT announced that yellow elk crossing signs would go up this week to warn drivers. Message boards were placed there in January. VDOT has also been studying the possibility of using several safety measures such as overpasses, warning systems and fencing.