More than seventy individuals and all three county commissioners attended the Monday, March 31, Putnam County Transportation Committee meeting. The committee meets every two months and usually draws about a dozen interested citizens and a single commissioner.

The vast majority of those present came to express their direct opposition to the West Virginia Department of Highways plan to widen Teays Valley Road from Great Teays Boulevard near Kroger Apple Lane past Scott-Teays Elementary. The widening project favored by the DOH does not add an additional lane to the road. It adds four single-lane 110-foot roundabouts. The locations of the roundabouts would adversely affect the Scott Depot Dairy Queen, the Teays Valley Business Park, ingress and egress to Maplewood and Beechwood Estates. In many instances, the shortest distance between two points would involve a circuitous route to and around a 110-foot roundabout.

Dirar Ahmad, the Assistant Director for Engineering for DOH, informed the gathering that safety was the issue and that studies have found that roundabouts is the safest and least expensive option for traffic on that section of Teays Valley Road and would allow for bike lanes and sidewalks. Ahmad stated that stakeholders had been consulted and were not opposed to the roundabouts.

The DOH has received about 400 public comments related to the project. Some stakeholders present said that they learned of the project only after the comment deadline had come and gone.