Corridor H updates?
September 26, 2010
20 posts
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It is still maintaning on the website that the next section from Mororefield to Foreman is going to open this fall. Does anyone have any updates on this?
It sure looks ready to go. I know I am ready
So, what is the advantage of being able to go from Moorefield to Foreman?
Thanks,
The Colonel
Ummmmm...acces to a great picnic area at a small lake off of thorn run....A Great get away to nowhere?...I don't think anyone lives in Foreman...think they will put an exit ramp there?
I guess that you will be able to take a back road to Scherr from there Colonel, which will have to do till they complete the next section.
It is interesting. The Corr H website also says that a 3 mile section west of Forman to "east of CR 3" is also going to be finished this fall. From where Corr H would intersect CR 3, it would be only a short distance down CR 3 to 42, and then one could proceed on 42 to Scherr. So MAYBE the plan is to open Corr H to CR 3 this fall. That would be a big help for Valley-bound traffic.
Check it out on the google satellite view if you haven't already.
There is definitely an interchange at Forman.
The drop off at CR 3 looks like just a temporary end of the line, no interchange in the long term picture, I'll bet.
And yes, that's a stone's throw to Scherr.
Assuming you go north through Greenland Gap, google maps has it as 5.2 miles to Scheer from the end of the line at CR3.
It is still maintaning on the website that the next section from Mororefield to Foreman is going to open this fall. Does anyone have any updates on this?
I tossed it already, but yesterday the Parsons Advocate had an article in it that said that section would be open in 2013/14(I think)...and then the section to Davis would be up and going around 2018...I could be wrong though I read it fairly quickly a coule days ago...
Just looked at Google maps. Those images are at least a couple years old, I think, but the drop off at CR 3 is pretty clear. Tucker, I think the Advocate may not have been precise enough -- Moorefield to Forman is this fall (according to Corr H website), Forman to Bismarck is 2013/14, and Bismarck to Davis is 2018. Hopefully that's still accurate. Personally, coming from the east, I care a lot less about the Bismarck to Davis section. Once Corr H climbs the Front, it is pretty smooth sailing on the existing road.
...no that advocate was precise I just read it to quickly this morning I guess...I just read it again up at hellbenders over a pbr and your right..
Just getting to the bottom of Scherr would be great but the cr3 deal sounds sweet for the poor souls still stuck in the DC area..Throw me some hate!
Hellbenders and a pbr sounds awfully good down here in DC right now.
Maybe we will get an anouncement of a new ski area next year to go with this news??!!?
The local paper, the "Moorefield Examiner" confirmed the opening date for this fall for the Moorefield to Bismark section. Last week trucks were painting lines on the paved parts of the bridges across Moorefield and the South Branch with signage going up. All of that is telling me... time is close.
Since I have not been able to travel this unfinished section after hours for pictures like I did with the Wardensville to Moorefield sections years ago, I can't say what the status of the highway is or how our traveling routes will be altered. But by looking at Google maps and living around here long enough to know the area VERY WELL, I suspect what is happening will be the highway will ONLY open up to Patterson Creek road. Meaning travelers from Wardensville can go as far as Patterson creek road before exiting that interchange and driving about 5-8 miles south west to Route 42 north of Petersburg.
I say that because based on the photos, with CH going only to Knobbly Mountain road (county rt 3), it doesn't make sense dumping all the traffic out on a road that is barely 2 lanes wide and partially painted in spots. The width, grade, and quality of that road to Maysville is really bad for steady regular traffic. Compared to Patterson Creek road, Pattersons Creek Road is FAR better in condition to handle additional traffic loads. I don't see the state redoing the entire road to Maysville for a temporary stop off. If anything, the extension to Knobbly Mountain Road is to allow the folks in that area to travel westward to Petersburg better and back home, not funneling regular traffic to a dead end there.
But looking at Google maps now it does show current progress (hot sure how old) of trucks stationed right near Rt 93 a few miles north of the 42/93 intersection down to near Knobbly mountain road with a huge break in work. I'm not sure if that has to do with the Greenland Gap controversy, though I get the feeling it might. I need to take a trip up there and just, check things out.
The more I look at the maps and seeing this road being built, I'm continually repulsed by the tyranny being set forth via the federal government to fund this and the state to pursue it. When obviously the (or any) benefit of the highway doesn't even allow it to pay for itself. It's appalling to see rights of the citizens violated on a continual basis to take property (that the citizens should have the final right over selling or keeping) for this which is showing me daily... has no state economic benefit. I say that because just recently in Moorefield, citizens won judgement in court against the state for extremely low compensation they received via eminent domain. The won judgement that allowed them to collect nearly $80,000 per acre taken to build part of Corridor H.
They definitely deserved far more... more likely definitely deserved not to have what they didn't want to sell, taken.
Two points
Undeveloped land in western Loudoun County, VA (a county consistently top five in household income in the nation) is selling at well under $10K per acre, finished three acre lots under $80k. The price for a three acre finished lot peaked at about $100k per acre at the height of the bubble. Point is I am not sure whose being "taken" here. Gotta love that WV court system.
The 2030 dates on Davis to Parsons and to the VA line seem like a joke to me. Will never happen.
I'm definitely aiming not to be argumentative, but to rather to give full facts since I myself am living through a situation where government, land acquisition, and price for land are all too well known.
First I'd be curious to know where there is undeveloped land at in Loudoun Co since everytime I've driven through it's housing developments, townhouses, or 'farm developments' everywhere. But with land prices in Hardy Co currently holding firm well above $10,000 acre, I'm just curious on that aspect.
Anyway to get to the point, is not that there is some amount of required fairness between government and private land ownership of the individuals at the heart of that matter. As if this was a mutual transaction of one party willing to sell, and another party who stumbles across a deal, buys the land and gets taken to court later for more money after the transaction of ownership was completed. Rather this, as with most all uses of eminent domain, was an abuse of not only the law itself, but the citizens who were targeted for their property.
The basis of our very freedom and liberty in this nation is built on personal property rights and the protection there-of to retain our own personal property without having it confiscated and or restricted for us to use it, sell it, and do with it as we please as long as it does not harm, endanger, or destroy the personal property of neighboring citizens. Our founding fathers recognized this and at the same time an extremely limited need for the government to be able to function it needed property to build courthouses, jails, town halls, military bases on in order for the basic role of defense and protection of citizens to be accomplished.
That when the government was to take take land from citizens on a very very limited basis only when the role of government couldn't function any other way, the land owners were to not only be compensated for the price of the land, but for livelihoods that were lost, income that was lost from that land and so forth. That may not have mattered much in the 1700s and 1800s when people owned land of hundreds acres each and government may have only take 5-10 acres for something. But in a day and age where amount of land owned my citizens is far smaller than before, the impact of loosing that land through confiscation far exceeds that of generations past.
I say this because in Wardensville, when Corridor H was being built, a certain land owner was only offered $900/acre by the state for close to 20 acres. This was during the 2001-2004 years when as you stated the price was far higher per acre of undeveloped, unrestricted land. I believe (going on old information but not stating it as 100% fact) he was able to negotiate upto $5,000/acre. When at the same time the actual market value between private transactions was close to $20,000 an acre. I know, because I was looking for land at the same time.
For the government to not only offer upto the actual price that the land would go for between a two party private sale, as well as not even offer far more on top of that for the uprooting of families, homes, and destruction and or harming of income by individuals who farm or have small businesses on their property, by all means the government should be forced to pay via the courts for such destruction and upheaval of individuals and families. Being that the law does state that if eminent domain happens, those to whom it is victimizing, has a right to a jury trial of their peers to award a full judgment value not based on a market value, but that of what those peers feel is being lost, destroyed, uprooted, and so forth.
Considering these citizens lost their land to the government who will use it to increase the value of land of the surrounding area, to encourage businesses to enter in, and allow every legal and illegal person to travel across that land, those individuals even in the court awarded judgement, still didn't receive enough per acre to justify having what they owned, confiscated from them. So in that essence, the fair thing to do is force the government to pay till it hurts to compensate those folks.
Don't get me wrong, there are people who sold their land willingly to the state of WV for CorridorH, I have no argument to that. They did with their property as they wished. Everything here is in reference to those who used their authority as personal property owning citizens to refuse to sell or give up what they owned to the government, regardless of reason.
Bawalker, sorry about the tone of the reply, not intending to pick a fight. Thanks for your thoughtful response to my terse post. A couple of disclosures. I am a lawyer in a firm and one of my partners does a lot of eminent domain so I am familiar with the issues. Also, I went to college at D&E in the early 80s and lived in WV for 3 more years prior to law school. So I am familiar with the area and the Corridor H issue. Indeed, the first question any D&E student asks is why the four lane on 33 prior to Elkins starts and ends in the middle of nowhere? The answer always--oh that is part of Corridor H--it will never be built (at least that was the answer circa 1980-1987). This was much to the disappointment of the newly arrived student who threw up from car sickness somewhere between Seneca Rocks and Bowden, because mom and dad could not drive on windy roads.
When I heard later that the project was being pushed through again, with a northern route (through Greenland Gap), my response was why not just follow Route 50 to Mt. Storm and then down 93. It seemed silly to me to take this alignment. Also, with I-68 then finished it took some of the east-west pressure off. So when I look at Google Earth, like you, I see a tortured path. (ref to PATH unintentional).
As to the land values, a client on mine just purchased 102 acres in western Loudoun for a million dollars, with a small house and 6 nice outbuildings.
Link Even with the buildings included in, this is still less than $10k an acre. Please realize that undeveloped land is selling for less than this, some as low as $6k in distress situations.
To be sure, this is not land in town, but it is also land in Foreman, WV either.
You are right, to the lawyer eminent domain is a question of highest and best use valuation. To the client, it is the loss of a part of themselves.
....Front page of advocate this week had article covering Manchin's recent press conference on Corridor H....Manchin announced that corridor H to Davis will be opening 5 years ahead of schedule....
Canaan Valley & hopefully at least 1 or maybe 2 surrounding mountains will soon be waking up from a long Hibernation...
Brad, not trying to be argumentative but the history of eminent domain in the US has almost no restrictions on the right of the Government to condemn land for public use. One of the few mudfights that Jefferson lost in our government foundation, was his idea that people had the right to allodial ownership. In fact, going back to common law, the only body that has allodial ownership rights in the US is the Government, be it Federal, State or local. You may have land ownership under the fee simple principle, which is subordinate to State sovereignty and is actually a form of a trust. The State may tax, condemn, regulate and even take away land under a growing number of conditions. And this has been continually tested in the courts, the last landmark ruling being Kelo v. New London. The principle goes all the way back to early British common law. As a matter of fact, and something that makes me scratch my head, the Supremes literally did away with the public use doctrine of ages, as the land was taken by the City of New London so that it could be granted to a private drug manufacturer firm which promptly decided to move across the Thames River and now New London has an undeveloped hole in the middle of downtown. Sad... And even when other states went ahead and passed constitutional amendments, these may not be valid in federal court against the federal right of eminent domain. Or in most cases, as many states passed laws against the unjustified taking of land, they also weakened the definitions of certain terms, such as "blighted", that in fact make these new laws ineffective. I actually tend to agree with you that the test of public use is so diluted that the Government may condemn or escheat land for whatever flimsy purpose they may have. Or enact zoning laws that make it impossible for you to enjoy the use of your property, which is in itself a form of taking.
As to Loudoun County, you may be used to the I-66/I-81 corridors, but there are more estates of the landed gentry in Loudoun County than you'd find in Fairfield County, CT, probably the Grand Central of the equestrian-mounted American aristocracy in the country.
I do wish you best of luck in your continuing struggle in the taking of your land. Seems it's been going for ages... And there doesn't seem to be a need for additional lakes in the area...
