Traffic Flowing through Wheeling Tunnels

After 10 months and not a thing to really show for it, the East bound tunnels are REALLY open right now. I drove through them last night and was absolutely shocked what 5.7 million dollars worth of work looks like. Paved roads? I think the road in the tunnel was in better condition before they started working. As far as the tile are concerned, which seemed to be the main reason for the entire project to get pushed back by 5 months plus, here are tiles missing all over the place and some are still covered by patching cement and in some place the bare tunnel walls can be seen. At the west end of the tunnel it's not even done at all, NO TILES!

Now we know how much money was wasted on this project, but how safe is it really? Dustin Neely, engineer with the West Virginia Division of Highways, said "I guess the main thing is that it is open and it is safe". Okay anytime a public official starts of a statement with "I guess" that sets of warning bells all over the place to me. "I guess" tells me either the tunnels are not as safe as the WVDOH would like it to be and were just pushed to have them open for the holidays or he is just disgusted with the project as a whole and thinks it's ridiculous that politics came into play over public safety.

While I may agree with the fact that the Wheeling Economy has suffered greatly over the closing of the tunnel, the fact remains that city and state officials knew it would impact the local economy and should have put plans in place to help the businesses as well. The city probably figured with more traffic flowing through downtown Wheeling as a result of the detour people had to take, it would actually increase business. Obviously that was a poor assumption. Businesses have suffered and some have even moved up to the Highland, which in my opinion was a great choice. The city did very little to ease the burden of this ordeal on the businesses. They could have offered tax breaks, incentives or even co op advertising in conjunction with the City of Wheeling. This could have been budgeted in to the overall expense of the work being done. I am sure there are many more ideas and possibilities available that could have been offered by the city to all the businesses in Wheeling that were affected. Maybe this will be a consideration when it closes down in spring again to finish the job, then of course we all get to look forward to the West Bound Lane of the Tunnel to close and go through the whole process again. I hope they have learned from their mistake the first time around.

Tourism and now gambling is supposed to help the city draw more people and potential customers for local businesses. What does the city have to really offer now? How many businesses are moving from to the Highlands because that is where the people are? Projects like this have caused many people to not bother with Wheeling any more. If our city officials continue to make bad calls like this, the old saying commonly heard around the valley "Last one out please turn out the lights" may just hold some truth for Wheeling in the not so distant future.