The Coalfields Expressway project in far Southwest Virginia will receive $3 million in federal funding that will be used to widen an existing two-lane section in Buchanan County to four lanes.
The two-lane section runs for 4 miles from Virginia 80 at Breaks Interstate Park to Virginia 609 at Bull’s Gap. Once the additional lanes are added and paved, all of the roadway built so far will be four lanes, according to Jonathan Belcher, executive director of the Virginia Coalfields Expressway Authority.
“That is the only section that is not four lanes along that whole corridor, from Pikeville, Kentucky, to Grundy, Virginia,” he said.
The money was part of a bipartisan appropriations package of funding approved by Congress and signed Tuesday by the president. It was announced by U.S. Rep. Morgan Griffith, R-Salem, and Sens. Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, both Democrats from Virginia.
For more than 30 years, the expressway, designated as U.S. 121 and also known as CFX, has been discussed as the best way to bring economic development to the coalfields region, particularly to Buchanan and Dickenson counties.
“We have said it before and it bears repeating that the Coalfields Expressway in Virginia is a critical piece to the success of economic development in this region,” Belcher said Wednesday in a news release.
If the project is fully built, it would cover a total of 50 miles in Virginia and cost an estimated $4 billion. Eventually, the plan is to link Interstates 64 and 77 in West Virginia with U.S. 23 in Virginia, which connects to interstates in Tennessee and Kentucky.
Sections of the route also overlap Corridor Q, an addition to U.S. 460. The Virginia portion of Corridor Q in Buchanan County shares more than 7 miles of its alignment with CFX.
The road is being built in pieces as money becomes available. In October, the latest 3-mile section opened in Buchanan County, which means the expressway now runs about 12 miles, or about 24% of the total project in Virginia.
The CFX authority was established by the General Assembly in 2017 and it has been working for several years to find funding for the project. Previously, $14 million was committed to the four-laning project by the federal government, and Buchanan County also committed $3.5 million in matching funding for the project, the news release states.
Belcher said the hope is to add state funding to the project. During the current session of the General Assembly, Del. Will Morefield and Sen. Travis Hackworth, both Republicans from Tazewell County, introduced budget amendments that would provide an additional $7.87 million to the project in fiscal year 2028, according to the release.
The new federal funding could also now provide a federal match for the state budget amendment, if approved, he added.