More than just concrete and engineering, the modern highway is also traffic studies, environmental impact statements and public comment -- all of which can require a decade or more to accomplish.
It takes a long time to build an interstate -- and a long time to block one. The $2.7 billion "alternative" put forth by PennFuture to the northern section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway is too little, too late.
Only after half of the 64-mile toll road was already in service did the Harrisburg-based activist group produce a transportation vision of its own. And it's a far cry from the rapid link that the Mon-Fayette Expressway will become between Pittsburgh and the struggling towns of the Mon Valley.
PennFuture offers a multimodal network of widened roads, urban boulevards, light-rail extensions, expanded busways and, yes, bike trails as the ideal way to quickly move goods and people. In the end, the folks from Charleroi and McKeesport who complain about how long it takes to get to a Pirates game would have the same complaint.
The Pennsylvania Turnpike's Y-shaped expressway is still the best plan for fast access to and from the Mon Valley. At 24 miles of roadway in Allegheny County, it's not perfect. At $2 billion for this final section, it's not cheap. That's why any responsible group committed to better transportation should focus on how to make the expressway dovetail more humanely with the community.
Don't expect PennFuture to do that. Quality transportation is not on its agenda (in fact, the group did no traffic studies to project the use of its proposed network). It's an organization concerned about the environment, "sprawl" and farmland preservation. Not surprisingly, it's practically an article of faith for its members that new highways are bad. Unfortunately, most people don't live in such a black-and-white world.
Though the fork of the Mon-Fayette Expressway would provide a much-needed route around Squirrel Hill Tunnel congestion, PennFuture recommends that harried Parkway East commuters leaving Downtown take an upgraded Route 837 through the South Side, Homestead and West Mifflin, then cross the Monongahela River and follow a new boulevard to Monroeville. That spells anything but relief.
For those from other Mon Valley towns, like Clairton and Elizabeth, who look forward to riding the expressway to Pittsburgh, PennFuture offers an upgraded Route 51. To which we ask: How will it make all the shopping centers, traffic lights and Century III Mall disappear?
Even when the Mon Valley was booming, it lacked quick access to Pittsburgh. Now that its post-industrial towns are fighting for survival, better transportation to the region's hub is a necessity. PennFuture's alternative is a decade late and millions of dollars short.
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