| While State Highway officials maintain they are not downsizing, outsourcing and contracting work that historically has been done by the state's highway workers - here comes legislation allowing the state to embark on the privatization of state highways using private and public money.
The legislation was approved Wednesday in the House of Delegates, allowing some of the private-public roads to charge tolls.
Delegate Barbara Fleischauer, D-Monongalia, called the bill "complicated," and set off a lively debate in the House.
Delegates passed the bill (HB4476) on a 69-27 vote, sending it to the Senate.
The proposal would allow public-private deals for future construction projects. As compensation, the private partners could collect tolls or user fees - and mine coal or obtain other natural resources on sites where the highways are built.
Delegate Robert Tabb, D-Jefferson, said residents of neighboring Virginia and Maryland would avoid West Virginia and the tolls, and that would hurt businesses in the region.
"An investor is going to be allowed to take private property and then get a return on it," he said. "Our people are already burdened with rapidly increasing taxes."
"When everything's done, it's going to be public property," said House Roads and Transportation Chairwoman Lidella Hrutkay, D-Logan. "We've put a lot of protections in this."
She said all the roads would eventually return to the publics hands.
The state Road Fund has been running short of funds in recent years.
Delegate Richard Browning, D-Wyoming, and executive director of the Coalfields Expressway Authority, was quick to come to the defense of the legislation.
He argued the state could save money by private firms making profits from the coal under the land.
Browning said allowing developers to extract natural resources would make the highway cheaper and could speed its completion.
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