State and federal money totaling $10 million is now in place to widen a section of the Coalfields Expressway connecting Buchanan County to eastern Kentucky.
The state budget that was finalized June 29 includes $7 million for continued construction of the highway, state Sen. Todd Pillion, R-Washington County, announced. The senator was the only Southwest Virginia lawmaker on the conference committee that negotiated the final spending plan.
Specifically, budget documents indicate the money will go toward the U.S. 460 completion project. This involves about four miles of the expressway project, from the Virginia 80 intersection near Breaks Interstate Park to the intersection of Virginia 609 that joins the existing four-lane highway, according to Jonathan Belcher, executive director of the Virginia Coalfields Expressway Authority and the Virginia Coalfields Economic Development Authority.
Two lanes of this section have been completed. The new state dollars will go toward adding two additional lanes, Belcher explained in an email. Also, it was announced in February that the federal budget includes $3 million that will go toward the same project, according to Belcher.
When the work is done, the roadway will be four lanes from the Buchanan County seat of Grundy all the way to Pikeville, Kentucky, he added. The timeline to bid and complete the project is about three years.
“We felt it was important to get it all four-laned now, while the rest of the project is finishing up with the bridge at Grundy, rather than face the difficult task of raising funding and doing it years later,” he said.
Local leaders and lawmakers have been talking about the need for the road for decades, primarily to connect the area to other states and open it up to economic development. The project will connect Interstates 64 and 77 in West Virginia with U.S. 23 in Virginia, which connects to interstate highways in Tennessee and Kentucky.
It is also designed to improve connectivity, enhance public safety, improve access to industrial sites, support tourism, strengthen regional transportation networks and provide safer travel routes.
Designated as U.S. 121 and often referred to as the CFX, the new road from the state line at Kentucky to Grundy, including the sections that are U.S. 460 and/or overlay with 460, is 14 miles total. Twelve miles have been completed and are open, and two miles will open next year, Belcher explained.
Of those 14 miles, seven are technically the Coalfields Expressway, and they overlay with 460. The other seven miles are technically 460, which Belcher said he views as connector sections to the expressway, because they all connect as one road.
If fully built, the expressway will total 50 miles in Virginia and cost an estimated $4 billion.
Funding is sought for connections to Wise, Dickenson counties
A critical milestone for the CFX was the General Assembly’s 2017 creation of the expressway authority to pull together state and federal resources, local governments, companies and individuals to seek funds and drive the planning decisions.
Belcher, a veteran economic developer for the seven-county, one-city coalfields region, was named to direct the authority, which includes representatives from Buchanan, Dickenson and Wise counties.
Early in the planning and legislative fundraising stages, local officials and the Virginia Department of Transportation realized the expressway would have to be built in pieces as money became available.
That includes finding a realistic, economical way to connect existing and planned expressway sections in Buchanan County with U.S. 23 at Pound in Wise County.
In February, Belcher told Pound Town Council members that a new plan for those sections has been formed. The original expressway design would have had the highway run along ridgetops north of Pound and the Dickenson County seat of Clintwood — a hugely expensive project.
Belcher told council that federal grants are being sought for preliminary design of a less costly route that would upgrade sections of 23 as it enters Pound and 83 between Pound and Clintwood in Dickenson County — routing expressway traffic through the towns.
In Dickenson, 83 is mostly two lanes with some additional third-lane passing sections. Currently, there are no four-lane roads in that county.
“We expect to hear a decision on that funding in the coming days, which hopefully will be favorable,” Belcher wrote. “We continue to look for all opportunities to advance the CFX and Route 83 corridors in Wise, Dickenson and Buchanan counties for the future of our region.”
Other expressway sections are completed or in the works
In October 2025, a nearly three-mile section of the CFX between Southern Gap Road and Poplar Creek Road in Buchanan County opened. It provides access to the 3,500-acre Southern Gap mixed-use development on top of a plateau created by mountaintop surface mine reclamation.
Work is underway on a phase of the Poplar Creek section, which will add two miles and take the road to the bridge in downtown Grundy. It is expected to cost $178 million and be finished in late 2027.
Short sections at Virginia 744 and at 83 in Lovers Gap southwest of Grundy are completed. The 11.5-mile Elkins section and the five-mile Rockhouse section from Grundy to the West Virginia line remain unfunded.
The nearly five-mile Doe Branch connector from Dickenson County near the town of Haysi to a completed section of Corridor Q west of Grundy is also unfunded.
West Virginia’s roughly 60-mile section is in the works and will travel through Raleigh, Wyoming and McDowell counties.
