In 1965, Congress authorized the Appalachian Development Highway to connect Appalachia to the rest of the world with limited access four-lane highways. Some of those corridors have now become interstate highways.  From Maine to Alabama, these roads have opened commerce to the people, businesses and mountains of Appalachia. They were designed for only one purpose – to open the region to more economic development opportunities.

The Appalachian Development Highway System is responsible for 168,000 permanent jobs and over $11 billion in annual Gross Regional Product growth.  

Corridor H is the final one yet to be completed in West Virginia. Stretching from I-79 at Weston, West Virginia, it runs to the Virginia border where it is designed to travel to I-81 near the junction with I-66 close to Front Royal, Virginia.  

Billions of dollars of exported goods from West Virginia will have direct access to the large inland port at Front Royal, Virginia- where double-stacked container rail can then take the goods to the deepest port on the Eastern Seaboard at Norfolk. This is eastern West Virginia’s closest access to a global port.