Morgantown Traffic Commission to draft scope for study aimed at limiting through truck traffic

MORGANTOWN — The Morgantown Traffic Commission on a recent meeting named limiting through truck traffic in the city a priority and asked the chair to draft a scope of work for a study that would examine legal authority, alternative routes and the local costs associated with heavy truck movements.

The move came after members discussed possible project approaches, including a legal analysis of the city’s authority, an alternatives analysis with stakeholder outreach and a potential land-swap option to redirect gravel and aggregate trucks. Chair Bridal Williams volunteered to draft the scope and present it at the commission’s next meeting; Chip Wamsley offered to contact the Metropolitan Planning Organization for existing data.

Commission Chair Bridal Williams, Fifth Ward representative, opened the substantive item by framing the work as project-based: “Looking on your screen here is that, the first priority of limit limiting through truck traffic in the city.” Williams said the commission had combined this priority with human-centered complete streets work and that the proposed study could start with assessing current conditions.

Drew Gatlin, staff engineer for the City Administration, described recent design work by the West Virginia Division of Highways on Green Bag Road and said the DOH has considered truck routing in early designs: “I will say that I had a 2 and a half hour, 3 hour meeting with the Department of Highways design team that is overseeing the Green Bag Road shared use path feasibility study,” Gatlin said, noting the city had been invited to participate in early design review and that the DOH is considering the route as an alternate corridor.

Commissioners and attendees outlined possible study elements: a legal review of municipal authority vis-à-vis state highways and the Federal Highway Administration; origin–destination and volume data collection; monetary quantification of direct costs (police response, utility repairs) and public-health impacts; and stakeholder interviews with trucking companies and facility operators. Sharon Patrick (Sixth Ward) asked whether damages and service disruptions could be monetized to make a financial case, saying, “Is there any way to determine how much due to the damages? … Is there any way to, like, monetize that?”

Panel members cited existing work that should be pulled into the study: prior origin–destination analyses (including a 2010 study and litigation referenced to the Supreme Court of Appeals decision in 2016), MPO freight datasets and state DOH design reports. A technical detail noted during the discussion: pavement degradation is commonly expressed using equivalent single axle loads (ESAL); a typical tandem dump truck can cause several orders of magnitude more pavement wear than a passenger vehicle.

Commissioners discussed scope and capacity. Some members urged a narrow, achievable first product — compile prior studies and data and run targeted stakeholder interviews — while others supported a broader quantitative analysis that would estimate public costs tied to truck-related incidents, road repairs and emergency responses. Williams proposed that the commission begin by assembling a scope of work that lists the data needed and possible near-term deliverables.

Chip Wamsley, chairman of the Bicycle Board, volunteered to pursue data access with regional partners: “I can take an action item to contact Bill and Jing at the MPO,” he said. The commission recorded a plan of action: Williams will draft a potential scope of work for the truck-traffic study and present it at the next commission meeting; interested members and volunteers may contribute material to that draft by email.

The commission also recorded two operational items during the meeting: the minutes from the March 5, 2025 meeting were approved by consensus, and commissioners discussed speed-feedback signage and other pedestrian-safety and complete-streets initiatives as related priorities. Several technical and funding figures were mentioned during the meeting as background: preliminary Green Bag Road work was described as a 10% design package with hundreds of pages of materials; an estimate range for a proposed pedestrian bridge at Mountaineer Heritage Park was cited at roughly $5 million to $10 million; the city’s sidewalk backlog was described as between $500 million and $1 billion and a proposed 10-year sidewalk plan at $50 million; and a single radar speed-feedback sign was cited at approximately $6,000 (trailers and portable units higher).

The commission did not adopt a final study scope at the meeting; rather members agreed on next steps and data requests and set the draft scope presentation as the item for the next meeting.

Sources: Commission meeting transcript; comments and project figures provided during the meeting by Bridal Williams (Chair and Fifth Ward representative), Drew Gatlin (Staff engineer, City Administration), Sharon Patrick (Sixth Ward), and Chip Wamsley (Chairman, Bicycle Board).