Avoid Similar Fiasco in Future

Tag : and similar

On Tuesday morning, the West Virginia Division of Highways revealedthat work would resume on the Wheeling Tunnel, on Monday.
By 3:25 p.m. that afternoon, the plan had been changed. Now, theproject is scheduled to resume on Wednesday. An embarrassed DOHspokesman told our reporter that someone at the agency decidedMonday would be a bad day to close eastbound lanes of Interstate 70at the tunnel, because of traffic leaving Jamboree in the Hills inBelmont County.
We sympathize with the DOH spokesman. Really. He is simplycommunicating decisions made by others in the agency. And he, too,probably is becoming frustrated with plans made, then changed, inregard to the tunnel.
But we doubt that anyone at the DOH is as frustrated as residentsof this area. We have been given no reason to believe that work inthe tunnel's eastbound tube will be completed by Nov. 1, as DOHofficials expect. Certainly, the track records of all involvedoffer no reason for optimism.
And once - or if - work in the eastbound tube is completed, thewestbound section of the tunnel will have to be addressed.
Under the original schedule for the project, both sections shouldhave been renovated by now. Area residents are all too familiarwith the long string of failures that put the work behind schedule.And, though all involved in the project say they are confident itwill be completed properly, that remains a question in many minds.
How on earth did the tunnel project become such a boondoggle? Andwhy, after work was suspended for several months to allow thecontractor, the DOH and the company providing surety for theproject to get their heads together, were there additional delaysof several weeks?
Even if the project finally is completed, it can in no sense belabeled a success. DOH officials are right to be embarrassed aboutit - but they also ought to be determined to get to the bottom ofthe multiple failures. A key question that needs to be explored iswhether the contract or contracts for the job gave the DOH adequatecontrol. At times, especially during the past few weeks, it hasseemed that the Safeco Surety Co., not the DOH, was controlling theproject. That may have been required under the contract - but wewonder whether the process was in the best interests of motoristsand taxpayers.
Once DOH officials finally have extricated themselves from thismess, they need to devote some serious energy to ensuring that nosimilar fiasco occurs again, anywhere in West Virginia.