Governor apparently still has eye on toll road

At the same time that PATH was a hot local topic in the summer of 2008, so was an ill-conceived notion to build the new U.S. 522, or at least parts of it, as a toll road.

The way it was planned, all north-south traffic would pay a toll near the U.S. Silica plant. The only way to avoid it would have been to drive Fairview Drive to River Road and go to the Hancock Bridge that way. Part of existing U.S. 522 would have been closed from North Berkeley through the sand mine, so a lot of traffic would have to double back through Berkeley Springs to find a way onto the new highway before heading north. Even if this was done, the projected toll income wasn't really enough to build the new road, anyway.

Though local officials were told in August 2008 that the toll plan was dead, Governor Joe Manchin brought it up on his visit to Berkeley Springs for a Democratic Party dinner earlier this month.

Since the latest report on state highway projects mentions a new U.S. 522 is still "unfunded," you can probably expect more toll road pressure in the years ahead as highway funding dwindles.

The governor has always promised that a toll road won't be built without local support, so the public and the Morgan County Commissioners need to be very clear about our continued opposition.