Moundsville Officials Respond to Traffic Concerns Amid Bridge Project

photo by: Emma Delk
Moundsville City Manager Rick Healy speaks during Tuesday’s city council meeting.
Moundsville City Manager Rick Healy said he has met with West Virginia Division of Highways officials regarding residents’ complaints about heavy traffic on detours around the Parrs Camp Bridge replacement project.
Healy detailed the results of his virtual meeting with WVDOH officials regarding detours for the bridge closure on U.S. 250 (Jefferson Avenue Extension) during Tuesday’s council meeting.
The official detour for the project designated by the West Virginia Department of Transportation is the alternate U.S. 250 Truck Route (Seventh Street). Healy said city officials “continue to hear complaints” from citizens regarding the detour, including the amount of truck traffic on Fifth Street between Tomlinson Avenue and W.Va. 2 and cars driving at high speeds on Tomlinson Avenue.
WVDOH will now close the left lane on First Street going west and funnel all traffic through the right lane so there will be “no more worry” of the two lanes merging into one, Healy said. Crews will also install a message board southbound before McDonald’s directing traffic to Seventh Street and place “no commercial traffic” signs at each end of Fifth Street.
According to Healy, the WVDOH is also exploring the construction of a pedestrian bridge for the detour. The current pedestrian detour options designated by the WVDOH are all over a mile in distance.
Resident Candy Dobbs raised concerns during the general public hearing portion of the meeting regarding drivers using Campground Road, a city-owned road, as a detour.
“I’ve had people follow me to my house asking me how to get to Grand Vue because they don’t know where they’re going and don’t know how to get out of there,” Dobbs said. “To me, it is not an inconvenience because I’m happy to talk to anybody. It’s inconvenient for them because they don’t know where they’re going, causing big issues.”
Healy said he met with Moundsville Police Chief Tom Mitchell to discuss solutions, including whether Campground Road could be made a one-way road for the project’s duration.
“We don’t know the answer on Campground Road, but it’s not wide enough for two vehicles,” Healy said. “People are going into yards and over hills and things like that. The road is absolutely not an assigned state detour, but people know it’s there, so they use it.”
Council member Denny Hall questioned whether city code included guidelines for determining whether a road is one-way or two-way based on its width.
“As narrow as that backroad is coming out of Campgrounds, that could be a good time to do it [create an ordinance for size guidelines to designate one-way or two-way roads in the city,]” Hall said.
Healy said he did not believe the city had an ordinance that made this distinction but said they could take the idea for the ordinance to the Traffic Subcommittee. Hall motioned to “refer to the size of the streets, especially in the Campground area,” to the Traffic Subcommittee. The motion was carried by the council with no opposition.