Trending
In a recent op-ed piece in The Inter-Mountain, Corridor H Authority Chairman Robbie Morris assures us that WVDOH has resolved the problem of "splitting the towns," by sinking the ROPA under Route 32, rather than over it.
But let's be clear: Whether a massive four-lane freeway goes over or under Route 32, it won't matter. Either way the R-ROPA, along with its sidekick the Truck Route, will devastate our mountaintop with not one, but two highway projects. The landscape on top of the mountain will never be the same.
It's only a precious little bit of land we have here on top of our mountain -- about 2-3 miles in length, not very wide -- but this extremely important piece of land holds the key to how we live our daily lives and how we maintain our current economy. We must protect it. It's the gateway to our two small towns, it holds the only entrance to Blackwater Falls State Park, and it holds a major confluence of trails -- reasons why we choose to live here and others come to visit.
To allow a massive interstate highway to cut across our mountaintop east to west and a truck route to slice it down the middle is equivalent to driving a stake into the beating heart of our community and our economy.
Why would we do that? Why would we choose two major road projects on our mountaintop when there is an alternate route that goes around our small towns and leaves the green center of our lives intact?
Nancy Luscombe
Davis