{"id":8192,"date":"2013-03-22T22:00:20","date_gmt":"2013-03-23T02:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=8192"},"modified":"2024-12-04T17:48:40","modified_gmt":"2024-12-04T22:48:40","slug":"country-roads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/capitalcitiesusa.org\/?p=8192","title":{"rendered":"Country Roads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"22<\/a>Linda Burton posting from Charleston, West Virginia \u2013 <\/i>Remember those country roads John Denver sang about? Almost heaven, West Virginia, Blue Ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River…; <\/i>\u00a0it\u2019s quite a catchy tune. I started humming this morning as soon as I spotted my first Blue Ridge Mountain on the way west from Richmond; I was in full chorus by the time I got to the Shenandoah Valley; surely the prettiest valley this side of any mountain. Red barns and black cows and rolling hills; the landscape is pleasing to the eye; bucolicly peaceful. I-64 joins I-81 south for a few miles; then it jags off west by itself again; an up and down ride getting steeper as I approached the West Virginia line. I stopped at the Welcome Center for maps and guidebooks; the wind was blowing strong and the temperature was mid-thirties; although the sun had melted the snow on the south side of the road. Country roads, take me home, to the place I belong, West Virginia, mountain momma, take me home country roads<\/i>. I-64 joined \"22<\/a>I-77 and took off to the north towards Charleston; then bam, there was a toll booth! A toll booth on an interstate? \u201cWhy do they call it a FREE way?\u201d I asked the nice lady who took my $2.00 toll fee. \u201cIt\u2019s privately owned,\u201d was her answer. \u201cWe get no state or federal money.\u201d She pointed to a web address on the side of the booth and told me to read all about it; after getting settled in my room, that\u2019s what I did. And that\u2019s where I learned about the West Virginia Turnpike. <\/p>\n

\"22<\/a>The West Virginia Turnpike opened as a two-lane highway in 1954 and cost $133 million to construct. It is now a four-lane toll highway, 88 miles in length, between Princeton and Charleston, West Virginia. Described as “an engineering achievement of heroic proportion,” the Turnpike traverses mountainous terrain that required grades of up to five percent and the movement of 33 million cubic yards of earth. The Turnpike climbs from an elevation of 600 feet at Charleston to an elevation of 3,400 feet at Flat Top Mountain and has 116 bridges – more than one every mile.<\/p>\n

An engineering marvel? Some big numbers to think about; the original construction required:<\/p>\n