West Virginia moves to complete Corridor H to state border; Virginia plans for impacts
By Ryan Fitzmaurice The Northern Virginia Daily April 30, 2025
A half-century-old highway battle is resurfacing at the West Virginia–Virginia border, as the Mountain State moves to extend Corridor H to the state line, creating pressure for Virginia to respond.
Local officials, conservationists and residents are warning that a major influx of truck traffic, environmental damage and potential economic disruption could follow — even if Virginia refuses to extend the highway.
Corridor H, part of the Appalachian Development Highway System first envisioned in 1965, has long been a source of local tension. Advocacy groups like the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley say the promise of economic development has not materialized, while the environmental and community impacts have only grown.
“Over the years, we have learned that there are much more effective and affordable ways to bring economic development to these communities,” the Alliance has stated.
When completed, the proposed 150-mile, four-lane highway would run from Interstate 79 at Weston, West Virginia, through the state's eastern mountains to the Virginia border at Route 48/55 west of Strasburg and then on to Interstate 81 near the junction with Interstate 66.
Much of the highway is already built in West Virginia, except for a final 6.8-mile stretch from Wardensville to the state line. The West Virginia Division of Highways is currently accepting public comment on plans to complete the stretch, with construction possible as early as late summer.
While West Virginia officials have said they are focused on completing the state's portion of the highway, conservationists and local residents argue the real strategy may be to pressure Virginia. By building a four-lane highway up to the state line, they say, West Virginia could create traffic and safety problems on Virginia’s narrow Route 55 — forcing Virginia to extend Corridor H east toward I-81 to deal with the fallout.
"It would force Virginia to deal with all this traffic and either improve upon the road or build Corridor H," said Loki Kern, campaign coordinator of the West Virginia group Friends of Blackwater. "What officials are hoping for is that it'll siphon traffic from I-81."
The West Virginia Division of Highways did not respond to questions asking them to define its rationale for potentially building the highway corridor to the state line.
Supporters of Corridor H argue that the highway will bring needed economic growth, better safety and faster access to hospitals and other essential services.
"Corridor H has made travel much safer than it ever was," said Alan Tomson, the mayor of Davis, West Virginia, at an April 22 public hearing. "It’s bringing people into the area, but it’s also allowing residents to get out — to reach hospitals, shopping and other destinations. It's been a real benefit."
In 2022, the Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors and the town of Strasburg passed resolutions reiterating long-standing opposition to Corridor H’s extension into Virginia, warning it would bring no benefit to local residents and cause irreversible harm to farms, historic sites and public-use facilities.
Those concerns remain today.
"If completed as envisioned by West Virginia legislators, this poorly planned highway expansion will bulldoze through the Virginia state line, into the George Washington National Forest, through the Cedar Creek drainage, and create a huge interstate exchange where the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park now lies," the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley said in a statement last week.
Shenandoah County supervisor Dennis Morris stated that local opposition to the highway dates back nearly a half-century to 1976.
"That was my first year on the Board of Supervisors and that was the first big issue I had to deal with," Morris said. "When they presented this plan, it was about as popular as hemorrhoids. Every time you turned around somebody’s business, somebody’s house, somebody’s neighbor, somebody’s family member was affected by it one way or the other."
Attempts to revive the project resurfaced between 1992 and 1995, when the Commonwealth Transportation Board floated new conceptual plans for Corridor H's extension into Virginia. However, Morris said strong opposition from residents, local governments and concerns about historical, environmental, and property impacts ultimately caused the plan to be scrapped once again by 1995.
Since then, Morris said, no money has been allocated and no concrete plans have moved forward on Virginia’s side.
But, Morris acknowledged that West Virginia’s efforts to push Corridor H to the border would inevitably send more truck and freight traffic flooding into Shenandoah County, whether or not Virginia chooses to extend the highway. He said the Route 55 corridor, in particular, could see a sharp increase in use, with safety, road maintenance and policing demands all likely to rise.
"We're going to have to deal with it," Morris said. "Definitely, we need to make some improvements. We can't just stick our heads in the sand and ignore it."
Virginia transportation officials are already preparing for the ripple effects. In a statement, Sandy Myers, communications manager for VDOT’s Staunton District, confirmed that no plans or development work have moved forward since Corridor H’s defeat in the 1990s.
"In 1993, the [Commonwealth Transportation Board] selected the location corridor for Corridor H in Virginia," Myers said. "Following the completion of a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement and receiving significant public opposition to building Corridor H on the recommended location in 1995, the CTB chose not to proceed with plans to build Corridor H in Virginia. No further study or development work has been done for Corridor H in Virginia since that time, including any connections from the West Virginia state line to I-81."
However, VDOT has launched a safety and operational analysis of Route 55, Myers said, expected to be completed by the end of this year.
"This analysis will consider programmed projects in the vicinity, including the development of Corridor H by WVDOH," Myers said.
Beyond traffic and development pressure, conservation groups are warning of major environmental consequences if Corridor H is extended.
Ellen Stuart-Haentjens, executive director of the Virginia Wilderness Committee, said the highway would carve into some of the most ecologically valuable parts of the George Washington National Forest, including the Great North Mountain area — a 6,681-acre region known for its mature forests, clean headwater streams and wildlife habitat.
"There could not just be impacts to the direct land adjoining that highway but to towns up and down it," she said. "There is likely to be more disruption to our headwater areas and to our headwater streams that just adds more stress to those systems. You can only put so much pressure on the environment and manipulate it so much."
Lynn Cameron, vice president of the Virginia Wilderness Committee, expressed concern about the environmental consequences of forest fragmentation caused by extending Corridor H to the state line. She said as climate change drives species to seek cooler, higher elevations further north, the Great North Mountain area serves as a vital passageway — one that could be severed by a four-lane highway.
"It fragments the forest. This whole Great North Mountain is part of a migratory corridor," she said.
Cameron said she feared impacts to the wood turtle, ground-nesting birds, such as the ovenbird, and other reptiles, mammals and plants that depend on unbroken habitat.
In addition to wildlife impacts, Wardensville residents at the April hearing voiced concern that blasting and runoff could jeopardize the town’s water supply. Groundwater and surface water flowing down Great North Mountain provide drinking water to Wardensville and parts of Virginia, and groups like Friends of Blackwater warn that damage to this fragile hydrology could have consequences far beyond the immediate construction zone.
"This might not be threatening Virginia at this present moment, but if the West Virginia government gets their highway, gets their project, it will be a problem for Virginians down the line, and there's no guarantee that it won't be built," Kern said.
Highway transition raises safety concerns
If built, the West Virginia portion of Corridor H would terminate just west of Great North Mountain’s crest, forcing eastbound vehicles from a four-lane highway directly onto Virginia’s narrow two-lane Route 55.
"The flaw I see in the design is funneling lots of potential traffic down into a two-lane right at the top of the mountain," said Malcolm Cameron, husband of Lynn Cameron of the Virginia Wildness Committee and a retired VDOT engineer. "Where we're all still going to be faster than we are now on Route 55, and that's already pretty dangerous."
Kern and Malcolm Cameron propose a more limited solution: improving Route 55 itself — straightening sharp curves, adding passing lanes and reinforcing the road to handle some additional truck volume without fundamentally altering the landscape.
"What I do think makes sense is safety improvements on 55," Malcolm Cameron said.
The Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley also criticized the proposed Corridor H route.
"This is not a suitable corridor for a major highway," the organization said in a statement. "It is a narrow mountain road with significant forest resources, headwater streams, historic sites and private homes and businesses, and community members in this area have already raised safety concerns."
A highway without a partner?
According to Stuart-Haentjens, what is missing from the discussion is real collaboration between West Virginia and Virginia.
"It's just the lack of input being taken by West Virginia from the Virginia side. It's just not being necessarily a good neighbor," she said.
"Building the highway right up to Virginia’s doorstep without collaboration is like planning a wedding without the groom," she said later.
Still, beyond the question of politics, she said, looms a broader question of what values Virginians — and Americans — are willing to fight for.
"We want clean water, we want clean air, we want all these things. If we continue to destroy the forests filtering the water for us and cleaning our air, giving us these green spaces, that is going to have a negative impact," Stuart-Haentjens said. "With this, it seems a lot of those things are being thrown to the wind. This might be one of these first big projects that allows the weakening of our collective determination on what we do or don't build in a national forest."
The West Virginia Division of Highways is accepting public comments on the Wardensville-to-state-line extension through June 1, with submissions accepted online or by mail. Conservation groups like the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley and Friends of Blackwater also encourage Virginians to contact their state and federal representatives — including U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, and the regional offices of the Federal Highway Administration — to ensure Virginia’s interests are heard before further construction proceeds.
West Virginia moves to complete Corridor H to state border; Virginia plans for impacts | Nvdaily | nvdaily.com
Local officials, conservationists and residents are warning that a major influx of truck traffic, environmental damage and potential economic disruption could follow — even if Virginia refuses to extend the highway.
Corridor H, part of the Appalachian Development Highway System first envisioned in 1965, has long been a source of local tension. Advocacy groups like the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley say the promise of economic development has not materialized, while the environmental and community impacts have only grown.
“Over the years, we have learned that there are much more effective and affordable ways to bring economic development to these communities,” the Alliance has stated.
When completed, the proposed 150-mile, four-lane highway would run from Interstate 79 at Weston, West Virginia, through the state's eastern mountains to the Virginia border at Route 48/55 west of Strasburg and then on to Interstate 81 near the junction with Interstate 66.
Much of the highway is already built in West Virginia, except for a final 6.8-mile stretch from Wardensville to the state line. The West Virginia Division of Highways is currently accepting public comment on plans to complete the stretch, with construction possible as early as late summer.
While West Virginia officials have said they are focused on completing the state's portion of the highway, conservationists and local residents argue the real strategy may be to pressure Virginia. By building a four-lane highway up to the state line, they say, West Virginia could create traffic and safety problems on Virginia’s narrow Route 55 — forcing Virginia to extend Corridor H east toward I-81 to deal with the fallout.
"It would force Virginia to deal with all this traffic and either improve upon the road or build Corridor H," said Loki Kern, campaign coordinator of the West Virginia group Friends of Blackwater. "What officials are hoping for is that it'll siphon traffic from I-81."
The West Virginia Division of Highways did not respond to questions asking them to define its rationale for potentially building the highway corridor to the state line.
Supporters of Corridor H argue that the highway will bring needed economic growth, better safety and faster access to hospitals and other essential services.
"Corridor H has made travel much safer than it ever was," said Alan Tomson, the mayor of Davis, West Virginia, at an April 22 public hearing. "It’s bringing people into the area, but it’s also allowing residents to get out — to reach hospitals, shopping and other destinations. It's been a real benefit."
In 2022, the Shenandoah County Board of Supervisors and the town of Strasburg passed resolutions reiterating long-standing opposition to Corridor H’s extension into Virginia, warning it would bring no benefit to local residents and cause irreversible harm to farms, historic sites and public-use facilities.
Those concerns remain today.
"If completed as envisioned by West Virginia legislators, this poorly planned highway expansion will bulldoze through the Virginia state line, into the George Washington National Forest, through the Cedar Creek drainage, and create a huge interstate exchange where the Cedar Creek and Belle Grove National Historical Park now lies," the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley said in a statement last week.
Shenandoah County supervisor Dennis Morris stated that local opposition to the highway dates back nearly a half-century to 1976.
"That was my first year on the Board of Supervisors and that was the first big issue I had to deal with," Morris said. "When they presented this plan, it was about as popular as hemorrhoids. Every time you turned around somebody’s business, somebody’s house, somebody’s neighbor, somebody’s family member was affected by it one way or the other."
Attempts to revive the project resurfaced between 1992 and 1995, when the Commonwealth Transportation Board floated new conceptual plans for Corridor H's extension into Virginia. However, Morris said strong opposition from residents, local governments and concerns about historical, environmental, and property impacts ultimately caused the plan to be scrapped once again by 1995.
Since then, Morris said, no money has been allocated and no concrete plans have moved forward on Virginia’s side.
But, Morris acknowledged that West Virginia’s efforts to push Corridor H to the border would inevitably send more truck and freight traffic flooding into Shenandoah County, whether or not Virginia chooses to extend the highway. He said the Route 55 corridor, in particular, could see a sharp increase in use, with safety, road maintenance and policing demands all likely to rise.
"We're going to have to deal with it," Morris said. "Definitely, we need to make some improvements. We can't just stick our heads in the sand and ignore it."
Virginia transportation officials are already preparing for the ripple effects. In a statement, Sandy Myers, communications manager for VDOT’s Staunton District, confirmed that no plans or development work have moved forward since Corridor H’s defeat in the 1990s.
"In 1993, the [Commonwealth Transportation Board] selected the location corridor for Corridor H in Virginia," Myers said. "Following the completion of a Supplemental Draft Environmental Impact Statement and receiving significant public opposition to building Corridor H on the recommended location in 1995, the CTB chose not to proceed with plans to build Corridor H in Virginia. No further study or development work has been done for Corridor H in Virginia since that time, including any connections from the West Virginia state line to I-81."
However, VDOT has launched a safety and operational analysis of Route 55, Myers said, expected to be completed by the end of this year.
"This analysis will consider programmed projects in the vicinity, including the development of Corridor H by WVDOH," Myers said.
Beyond traffic and development pressure, conservation groups are warning of major environmental consequences if Corridor H is extended.
Ellen Stuart-Haentjens, executive director of the Virginia Wilderness Committee, said the highway would carve into some of the most ecologically valuable parts of the George Washington National Forest, including the Great North Mountain area — a 6,681-acre region known for its mature forests, clean headwater streams and wildlife habitat.
"There could not just be impacts to the direct land adjoining that highway but to towns up and down it," she said. "There is likely to be more disruption to our headwater areas and to our headwater streams that just adds more stress to those systems. You can only put so much pressure on the environment and manipulate it so much."
Lynn Cameron, vice president of the Virginia Wilderness Committee, expressed concern about the environmental consequences of forest fragmentation caused by extending Corridor H to the state line. She said as climate change drives species to seek cooler, higher elevations further north, the Great North Mountain area serves as a vital passageway — one that could be severed by a four-lane highway.
"It fragments the forest. This whole Great North Mountain is part of a migratory corridor," she said.
Cameron said she feared impacts to the wood turtle, ground-nesting birds, such as the ovenbird, and other reptiles, mammals and plants that depend on unbroken habitat.
In addition to wildlife impacts, Wardensville residents at the April hearing voiced concern that blasting and runoff could jeopardize the town’s water supply. Groundwater and surface water flowing down Great North Mountain provide drinking water to Wardensville and parts of Virginia, and groups like Friends of Blackwater warn that damage to this fragile hydrology could have consequences far beyond the immediate construction zone.
"This might not be threatening Virginia at this present moment, but if the West Virginia government gets their highway, gets their project, it will be a problem for Virginians down the line, and there's no guarantee that it won't be built," Kern said.
Highway transition raises safety concerns
If built, the West Virginia portion of Corridor H would terminate just west of Great North Mountain’s crest, forcing eastbound vehicles from a four-lane highway directly onto Virginia’s narrow two-lane Route 55.
"The flaw I see in the design is funneling lots of potential traffic down into a two-lane right at the top of the mountain," said Malcolm Cameron, husband of Lynn Cameron of the Virginia Wildness Committee and a retired VDOT engineer. "Where we're all still going to be faster than we are now on Route 55, and that's already pretty dangerous."
Kern and Malcolm Cameron propose a more limited solution: improving Route 55 itself — straightening sharp curves, adding passing lanes and reinforcing the road to handle some additional truck volume without fundamentally altering the landscape.
"What I do think makes sense is safety improvements on 55," Malcolm Cameron said.
The Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley also criticized the proposed Corridor H route.
"This is not a suitable corridor for a major highway," the organization said in a statement. "It is a narrow mountain road with significant forest resources, headwater streams, historic sites and private homes and businesses, and community members in this area have already raised safety concerns."
A highway without a partner?
According to Stuart-Haentjens, what is missing from the discussion is real collaboration between West Virginia and Virginia.
"It's just the lack of input being taken by West Virginia from the Virginia side. It's just not being necessarily a good neighbor," she said.
"Building the highway right up to Virginia’s doorstep without collaboration is like planning a wedding without the groom," she said later.
Still, beyond the question of politics, she said, looms a broader question of what values Virginians — and Americans — are willing to fight for.
"We want clean water, we want clean air, we want all these things. If we continue to destroy the forests filtering the water for us and cleaning our air, giving us these green spaces, that is going to have a negative impact," Stuart-Haentjens said. "With this, it seems a lot of those things are being thrown to the wind. This might be one of these first big projects that allows the weakening of our collective determination on what we do or don't build in a national forest."
The West Virginia Division of Highways is accepting public comments on the Wardensville-to-state-line extension through June 1, with submissions accepted online or by mail. Conservation groups like the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley and Friends of Blackwater also encourage Virginians to contact their state and federal representatives — including U.S. Sens. Tim Kaine and Mark Warner, U.S. Rep. Ben Cline, and the regional offices of the Federal Highway Administration — to ensure Virginia’s interests are heard before further construction proceeds.
West Virginia moves to complete Corridor H to state border; Virginia plans for impacts | Nvdaily | nvdaily.com
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