New detour routes soon will be put into place for eastbound motorists wishing to access downtown Wheeling after traveling east on Interstate 70.
That is because crews with Swank Construction will begin re-decking Exit 1-A, a project that will last approximately 120 days, according to Ohio County Sheriff Tom Howard. The closure, he said, is scheduled to begin in the middle of June.
“We knew when the eastbound side of I-70 was going to close on the east side of Wheeling Tunnel since the schedule was released, but that ramp closing is going to change a lot for the people who live in this area,” Howard said. “And it’s not for just a couple of days, either. That ramp down to Main Street will be closed to traffic for four months, and that means until mid-October just before the bridges near Fulton are finished.
“One thing I will say is that Swank has been very good with the closures. If they have closed something, and they say it will be for 60 days, it’s been 60 days,” the sheriff said. “That has been the case unless they run into more problems than what they expected, and that did happen on the west side of Wheeling Island. But, if everything goes according to plan, they have stuck to their timelines across the board.”
More Barrels?
With the closure of Exit 1A, motorists needing to access downtown Wheeling will need to travel through Wheeling Tunnel and take the exit for W.Va. Route 2 south. Once on the highway, the first exit will deliver travelers to 16th Street in East Wheeling.
Another option will be to exit I-70 for I-470 near St. Clairsville and then take Wheeling exit at the end of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Bridge. That path will guide the motorist into a tricky intersection, however, at the merging point of the two interstates in Elm Grove.
“I very seldom come down from Bethlehem on I-470. I go down East Bethlehem Boulevard instead and go through Elm Grove,” Howard said. “The same goes for the entrance to I-70 westbound in Elm Grove. Now, with the Monument Bridge project delayed, that will help, but it won’t erase it all.
“Every time new closures take place, it takes a bit for local residents to realize it, and then they adjust,” he explained. “The local residents usually are not causing the problems. It’s the people who are just traveling through, and it may be all new to them.”
Although the eastbound bridges east of Wheeling Tunnel are scheduled for completion by the end of October, I-70 in Ohio County will not be clear of construction until the middle of 2022, according to Tony Clark, the District 6 Engineer for the W.Va. Division of Highways.
“It likely will be in the summer next year when Swank actually pulls out,” he said. “The project overall has gone very well to this point, but the final completion date is too far out right now to determine. There are so many factors that came into play, but with the reopening of the eastbound lanes in the Fulton area, everything is on schedule.”
Clark released to the media on Tuesday that the preservation project on the Monument Bridge in Elm Grove has been delayed until April 2022 to relieve worries along I-70 and other city roadways.
“The project is certainly moving right along, and now that the Monument Bridge project has been delayed by 10 months, we won’t have to worry as much about what to expect for traffic on I-70 in those construction zones,” Howard explained. “One area that concerns me is in Elm Grove, where Interstate 470 merges with I-70. That area on the eastbound side, if someone isn’t paying attention to the changes to the traffic patterns, can become a very big problem because an accident would block them both.”
