A plan for a controversial highway, known as the Coalfields Expressway, will undergo a full environmental impact study by the Virginia Department of Transportation. V-DOT has described the plan the road as an economic lifeline for a region with a depressed economy. But citizen groups see it as benefiting only coal mining companies and not local communities. The Coalfields Expressway is a long planned route that would link Interstates 64 and 77 in West Virginia with Route 23 in the southwest part of Virginia. But in 2005 when high cost estimates threatened the project, the Virginia Department of Transportation found what it calls “innovative ways to make highway construction more efficient and effective.” Through a program known as a public private partnership V-DOT could slash road-building costs by partnering with coal companies, and gaining use of their considerable earth moving equipment to build the road. In turn, the proposed route was changed to allow the companies easy access to
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