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U.S. Route 52 skirts the western fringes of the U.S. state of West Virginia. It runs from the Virginia state line near Bluefield, where it is concurrent with Interstate 77, in a general northwest and north direction to Interstate 64 at Kenova. There it turns east, overlapping Interstate 64 for five miles (8 km) before splitting off onto the West Huntington Expressway into Ohio via the West Huntington Bridge. Despite having an even number, US 52 is signed north–south in West Virginia. In some other states along its route, it is signed east-west. The West Virginia segment is signed such that U.S. 52 north corresponds to the general westward direction of the highway, and ''vice versa''. Most of the route is being upgraded to a high-speed four-lane divided highway, but not to interstate standards. It has been designated as part of the Interstate 73 and Interstate 74 corridors. From Interstate 77 south of Bluefield to near Williamson, the new highway has been referenced to as the King Coal Highway; from Williamson north to Kenova, it is the Tolsia Highway. ==West Huntington Expressway== The West Huntington Expressway is a controlled access elevated highway that crosses the west end of Huntington WV. It was constructed in 1965 and originally signed as West Virginia Route 94. The first segment to open was a stub from Interstate 64 to Jefferson Avenue in West Huntington in the fall of 1965. This included a bridge over a CSX railroad mainline. In the early 1970s, the expressway was extended northward across what is now the Nick Joe Rahall II Bridge across the Ohio River to U.S. Highway 52/State Route 7 in Ohio. Tolls were collected at the Ohio River bridge until the mid-1980s. The expressway has four lanes from Interstate 64 to the U.S. Route 60 interchange, where it drops to two lanes for the remainder of the highway, which includes the Ohio River bridge. The expressway was renumbered U.S. Route 52 in 1979 when that federal highway was re-routed out of downtown Huntington to a new alignment on I-64 west to the Tolsia Highway south of Kenova. ==Tolsia Highway== The Tolsia Highway is defined as running from Interstate 64 at Kenova to Corridor G (US 119) north of Williamson.〔Mitchem, Mike, and David B. Akers. King Coal Highway, I-73/74 Authority. Gilbert: West Virginia Department of Highways, n.d.〕 Portions of the highway have been completed. In 1998, US 52 south of the Interstate 64 interchange in Kenova was upgraded to four-lane highway standards to the Tri-State Airport Access Road. In 2001, the four-lane highway was extended southward approximately two miles to a stub interchange with West Virginia Route 75, removing a steep downgrade with a large sweeping curve. Also in 1998, the Prichard, West Virginia bypass was opened to traffic with one interchange and one at-grade intersection. This four-mile (6 km) bypass includes very large rock cuts and a long and winding grade down a hill. In 2001, the four-lane highway was extended northward for one mile (1.6 km), removing some grades and curves along US 52. The extension was completed in 2002 at a cost of $9,613,889.26. New signage was installed in late 2002 to replace orange construction signs that date to the construction of the bypass. Before the eastern bypass was built, US 52 inside Prichard involved two alignments. U.S. 52 originally took the path of West Virginia Route 152, approximately east of the current alignment. In the mid-1960s, state funding was secured to upgrade most of county route 1, which ran along the Big Sandy River and Tug Fork River. The upgraded county route 1 was renumbered as US 52 in 1979. A western bypass of Prichard was constructed in the mid-1970s and partially abandoned in 1999, when the new four-lane alignment east of the community was constructed. In 2001, the Crum segment of the Tolsia Highway opened to traffic. The highway begins just north of Crum, touching down at an incomplete diamond interchange with US 52 and heads eastward towards county route 2. It has at-grade intersections with county route 52-47 and county route 52-31 along with a side road at the eastern terminus that takes traffic to county route 2. There are stubs for future bridges and ramps. Signage along this segment is minimal, with only a handful of arrows to designate the route. While the highway was built to four-lane standards, it is only striped for two. In late 2002, Senator Robert C. Byrd received $20 million in funds to jump-start construction on the northern half of the King Coal Highway. The money would be used to speed up construction on the link between Huntington and Prichard, serving several industrial parks and relieving two-lane US 52 of coal-truck congestion. In 2003, survey and design of five miles (8 km) of four-lane US 52 upgrades from Prichard north to Cyrus were completed. This includes an interchange and five bridge structures. Estimated cost of construction is $90 million. Total design work for 2003-2004 on the Tolsia Highway totals over . 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「U.S. Route 52 in West Virginia」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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