photo by: Emma Delk

A bridge closure on U.S. 250 (Jefferson Extension) in Moundsville for a bridge replacement project has resulted in multiple traffic changes in the city.

MOUNDSVILLE — City Manager Rick Healy believes traffic flow has improved following drivers’ adjustment to the multiple traffic changes due to the Parrs Camp Bridge Replacement project.

The West Virginia Division of Highways project has resulted in the bridge closure on U.S. 250 (Jefferson Extension) that is projected to last until the end of the summer. 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 the WVDOH’s addition of a sign advising drivers to use Seventh Street “helped immensely” in directing drivers to the alternate route.

“The traffic flow has gotten a lot better,” Healy said. “The addition of the sign directing drivers to on Seventh Street has taken a lot of the load off Fifth [Street].”

Another adjustment the WVDOH made was to close the left lane on First Street going west to funnel all traffic through the right lane so drivers did not have to adjust to the two lanes merging into one.

An additional traffic change made by Moundsville City Council following the bridge closure was designating Campground Road as a one-way street from Simpson Avenue to Cherokee Drive. This change was implemented on Monday, March 3, to alleviate the heavy two-way traffic on the street that resulted from the bridge closure.

City council approved the traffic adjustment after residents along the road voiced their concerns about drivers getting lost along the road and driving into yards while attempting to drive both ways on the narrow street.

After over a month of this change, Healy said drivers still violate the one-way change. He noted that the Moundsville Police Department does not have the staffing abilities to put an officer on the road to monitor traffic “all day long.” He added that when police are stationed at Campground, they stop and cite drivers for not following the traffic changes.

“The one-way change on Campground has helped a lot,” Healy added. “I think we’ll be OK [until the end of the project].”

The city has installed a guardrail along Campground for drivers and patched the areas where drivers have driven up into yards. Healy said the city would have to perform additional fix-up work on Campground following the project’s completion.

“Once the project is done, we’re going to get Campground Road back to being just little old Campground Road,” Healy said. “We’ll probably have some of our crew go in and try to mitigate some of those damages while the project is still happening.”

Healy noted that overall, the traffic adjustments have not significantly increased the number of traffic incidents in the city. He said he did not believe any more traffic changes will be made in the city since traffic flow has improved with the current changes.

An aspect of the bridge closure adjustments that never came to fruition was the construction of a temporary pedestrian bridge detour at the bridge on U.S. 250. The WVDOT’s designation of the pedestrian detour options as all over a mile in distance motivated this.

While city officials met with the WVDOH to see if the pedestrian bridge could be constructed, Healy said the project never got off the ground because of the prohibitive cost. He noted that the bridge would have cost over $40,000 to build and that the state was “not willing to provide” the bridge as part of the project.

“I think we all felt it was a high cost for something that you’re going to dispose of down the road,” Healy said. “It’s unfortunate that it could not happen.”