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It is absolutely obvious that they need to get on board with other Ohio Valley towns and get WV 2 fully developed along with I 68 completed to WV 2. Doing that would be beneficial for the entire Ohio Valley in a major way.
Agreed 100%. The exploration/drilling boom currently in progress won't last long, and isn't terribly dependent on major highway transportation anyway. The long term, permanent jobs come from the downstream processing and manufacturing activities. And those plastic pellets and automotive parts and everything else do travel by truck.
Improving and 4-laning WV-2 from Wheeling to Huntington would facilitate transport amongst various plants along the river, while connecting I-68 would provide an efficient outlet to Northeastern markets. I-64 is already in place to serve the Southern markets, and so the Ohio River Corridor would have good highway connections at both the northern and southern ends.
Agreed 100%. The exploration/drilling boom currently in progress won't last long, and isn't terribly dependent on major highway transportation anyway. The long term, permanent jobs come from the downstream processing and manufacturing activities. And those plastic pellets and automotive parts and everything else do travel by truck.
Improving and 4-laning WV-2 from Wheeling to Huntington would facilitate transport amongst various plants along the river, while connecting I-68 would provide an efficient outlet to Northeastern markets. I-64 is already in place to serve the Southern markets, and so the Ohio River Corridor would have good highway connections at both the northern and southern ends.
Yep, but WV 2 needs to be improved all the way up to Chester, not just to Wheeling. Chester and Weirton are actually Pittsburgh suburbs, and opening up access to the Burgh from those shale rich areas is very important too.
The problem is our state's political brain trust (allow me some latitude when I say that tongue in cheek) wants to p*ss most of the money away on hairbrained roads that "might" have the potential to create a few tourism jobs and save some folks a few minutes when they want to visit the Columbus Zoo. The real potential for actual economic development is in totally different parts of the state.
The Ohio Valley is West Virginia's industrial future. The entire valley from Chester to Huntington will be teaming with plastic production and transport activities if they improve the infrastructure of WV 2 and I 68. They need to be able to transport the raw materials and finished products back and forth, and to the massive eastern markets from the Mid and Upper Ohio Valleys. Ohio would already be putting it in place if they didn't already have it for the most part.
Wheeling is showing off their future plans for the city. Though the draft plan won't be presented until this spring, what they are teasing sounds great. I really like their emphasis on downtown and establishing a formal arts district. That would be really cool and add some even more character to a small city with so much of it already. There is more good stuff, so read it for yourselves.
Wheeling is showing off their future plans for the city. Though the draft plan won't be presented until this spring, what they are teasing sounds great. I really like their emphasis on downtown and establishing a formal arts district. That would be really cool and add some even more character to a small city with so much of it already. There is more good stuff, so read it for yourselves.
I'm originally from Wheeling. I grew up there right up until adulthood. There was a time when Wheeling was a Victorian showplace much like Charleston (the real one, in South Carolina), Savannah, and other wonderful historic cities. In their infinite wisdom, and often to enrich their own coffers, city leaders wiped out much of that historic legacy. The city actually destroyed blocks of historic homes in North Wheeling and replaced them with fake historic homes. Just recently an entire block of historic East Wheeling was totally destroyed to appease a special interest group. They could have made capital out of that history, and still can to a much more limited degree, but terrific opportunities have been destroyed forever by inept and/or self serving leadership. I would say that, in spite of the outstanding opportunities that once existed, the prospects to take advantage of that today are only a little better than they are in Parkersburg, Huntington, and Charleston. In short, those days are largely gone and behind us.
That said, Wheeling's prospects are bright in other areas due to gas and oil developments, but I would say making real progress based on arts districts and the like are limited at best for decades to come. Oh, the old money is still there and there will be some token efforts like we see in some of the other towns in WV, but it won't be more than window dressing. The future of the arts in West Virginia is to be found in Morgantown and Huntington (though not based on Victorian heritage in either case), Morgantown more than Huntington, but in both of those cities. Those cities have the infrastructure and assets in place to make it happen. The rest of West Virginia does not.
Parkersburg used to have a Frontier League team that played at City Park when I was growing up. They were called the Ohio Valley Redcoats. It would be nice to see a remodeled City Park field, or even a downtown park in one of the now urban parking lots.
Parkersburg used to have a Frontier League team that played at City Park when I was growing up. They were called the Ohio Valley Redcoats. It would be nice to see a remodeled City Park field, or even a downtown park in one of the now urban parking lots.
That would be nice, but the powers in charge will want it up at Ft. Boreman, which isn't that bad of a location. I would, however prefer a downtown site. I'll go on Google Maps later and see what places I can come up with...
I like the Fort Boreman site myself, where there would be room for hotels, restaurants, and gas stations. They really need to do something to start developing that prime piece of property. I'm not sure Parkersburg has the sort of downtown for a baseball stadium.
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