December 4, 2023 - For years, a span that was erected years ago in Mercer County, WV, has been officially known as the Christine Elmore West Bridge, but many people know it as the Bridge to Nowhere. The only destination the bridge offered was the side of a mountain.

Months of hard work has changed this reality. Now the bridge can actually take motorists from one point to another. Drivers will be able to experience this reality Dec. 13 when Gov. Jim Justice comes to Bluefield and joins in a ribbon-cutting ceremony that will officially open a section of the King Coal Highway.

“There was a bridge built over there decades ago,” Justice said about the bridge when he announced the upcoming ceremony. “It was called the Bridge to Nowhere. Forever. Forever and a day. But on Dec. 13 at 4 p.m. in Bluefield we are going to tie in a bridge that is no longer to nowhere on the King Coal Highway.”

Once the ribbon is cut on Dec. 13, traffic for the first time will be able to connect with the K.A. Ammar Interchange at John Nash Boulevard, a project that was completed in 2003. Traffic will be able to go across the Christine West Bridge, which was completed in 2008. Then motorists will travel across the new interstate bridge above Kee Dam before connecting with the new Airport Road interchange.

People dubbed the span above Stoney Ridge the Bridge to Nowhere because after its completion in 2008, work on the King Coal Highway project in Bluefield was stalled for nearly a decade. Work finally resumed in 2018 through Justice’s Roads to Prosperity Program, which awarded a $68 million contract for the Airport Road stretch of the new interstate corridor.

The King Coal Highway is West Virginia’s local corridor of the future Interstate 73/74/75 routing.

When it is finished, the King Coal Highway will extend 95 miles through Mercer, McDowell, Mingo, Wyoming and Wayne counties. It will connect U.S. 119 near Williamson to Interstate 77 in Bluefield, and is intended to open up the Mountain State’s coalfields to economic development and connect the region with markets to the north and south.

Southern West Virginia has needed a new highway for years. One glaring example is seen every day when tractor-trailers hauling heavy equipment have to pass through Bluefield so they can get on the two-lane U.S. Route 52. While Route 52 offered adequate access to McDowell County and neighboring counties decades ago, it wasn’t designed for the huge trucks traveling today’s highways such as Interstate 77. Motorists traveling up and down Route 52 often come within inches of tractor-trailers traveling in an opposite lane.

A lot more work needs to be done before the entire highway system is completed. When finished, the final Interstate 73/74/75 routing should run from Detroit, Mich., to Myrtle Beach, S.C., opening up much of southern West Virginia to interstate access.

Design work is already underway, and right-of-way acquisitions are expected to start soon, on the next section of the King Coal Highway in Mercer County that will take the interstate corridor from Airport Road toward the mountaintop ridges of Littlesburg Road. According to West Virginia Department of Highways District 10 Engineer Ryland Musick, the Department of Transportation is looking at a 2025 timeline for the start of construction on the Littlesburg Road section of the King Coal Highway.

The ribbon cutting ceremony on Dec. 13 is a small part of a greater endeavor, but it’s a sign that work is moving forward. A static project becoming reality. One step at a time.