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While transportation officials, state legislators and members of Congress have been deep into the process of planning a replacement for the Market Street Bridge, with a focus connecting an area in downtown Steubenville with an area of West Virginia Route 2 between Weirton and Follansbee, the Hancock County Commission decided to throw their own thoughts into the mix.
As part of Thursday’s meeting, Hancock commissioners approved sending a proposal which would use Brown’s Island as a corridor for the bridge replacement.
I wasn’t really surprised when I saw the item on the agenda.
As a matter of transparency, I had heard this thought had been circulating - just not from anyone in Hancock County. I overheard discussion a few weeks back by people in Brooke County, who, most likely, had learned of it once it was submitted to the Brooke-Hancock-Jefferson Metropolitan Planning Commission. It should be noted, while Hancock commissioners voted on the proposal Thursday, it already had been submitted to the BHJ in a letter dated June 30.
Suffice it to say, the Brooke County folks weren’t happy. I can imaging the same will be true for a large group in Jefferson County.
The Market Street Bridge has stood for more than a century, carrying various types of traffic across the Ohio River into downtown Steubenville. It was closed because of ongoing deterioration to its support system, and, for the last year (and especially the last several months), plans have been in the works to replace it with a span also going into downtown Steubenville.
We’ve seen the need for such a span the last few summers as construction zones have been set up along U.S. 22 and on the Veterans Memorial Bridge, with traffic backups, vehicle crashes, and lots of frustrated drivers making their way along one of the region’s primary transportation corridors.
Hancock County’s idea would ignore that need, piggybacking on an already planned, long-term project to develop an industrial access road in Weirton which had an eventual goal of setting up new or improved connections to Brown’s Island from both West Virginia and Ohio.
The Brown’s Island project was brought up almost a decade ago, championed by the Frontier Group of Companies, which owns the island along with much of the former steel-making property in Weirton’s north end.
The Buffalo, N.Y.-based company announced the possibility of buying the land back in 2015, with the purchase finalized in early 2017. At that time, officials began talking about the possibility of developing the industrial access road which is at the crux of the Hancock County bridge idea. While the road would be available for public use, it’s primary reasoning was to get the heavy truck traffic off of Weirton’s Main Street, diverting it through the Frontier property and providing improved access to the industries and businesses which would one day call the land home.
The City of Weirton, along with BHJ, was awarded a series of transportation grants for the planning and eventual construction of the road, but it’s still a way off. To date, the only completed portion is the road leading to Form Energy from the Main Street/County Road intersection.
The current plan for a Market Street Bridge replacement from downtown Steubenville would be for the new span to be completed sometime in 2031. There are five main locations proposed, with studies already in the works as to their viability.
Meanwhile, there’s no guarantee the industrial access road will be completed in five years, let alone the necessary improvements to the existing Brown’s Island bridge and the construction of a new span to reach the Ohio side. The current bridge which leads to Ohio is barely big enough for one car to cross at a time.
While I appreciate Hancock County commissioners’ idea, a Brown’s Island bridge crossing, if it is meant to be, will happen on its own as part of ongoing development plans. Even then it won’t benefit the vast majority of people traveling between our two states.
Improving the transportation in our main corridors has to be the priority for the leadership of our region, especially when we’re so far into the process already.
(Howell, a resident of Colliers, is part of the news staff of The Weirton Daily Times. He can be contacted at chowell@weirtondailytimes.com or followed on Twitter/X @CHowellWDT)