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Friday, June 21, 2002

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission isn't wasting time advancing the proposed 24-mile northern section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway.

Although a 75-day public comment and review period on an extensive environmental study does not end until Aug. 14, the state agency developing the toll road north to Pittsburgh has narrowed the list to three for a consultant to oversee final design.

It also has started advertising for engineering firms to do final designs for the first five of 13 construction segments that will make up the section from Route 51, Jefferson Hills, to the Monongahela River near East Pittsburgh, where one leg of a Y-shaped junction will veer northeast to Monroeville and the other west to Pittsburgh and the Parkway East.

"This will enable us to transition immediately into the next phases of activities -- final design and acquiring the rights of way," Frank Kempf, the turnpike commission engineer in charge of toll road expansion, said yesterday at a semiannual meeting of the Mon-Fayette Expressway/Southern Beltway Executive Committee at the Holiday Inn-Meadow Lands.

Turnpike commission officials hope to receive formal federal approval -- a "record of decision" -- to proceed to pre-construction stages involving final design by July 2003.

It is likely to be at least 2007 before dirt flies, however.

Turnpike commission special consultant Dave Zazworsky called the northern section of the highway the "keystone of all seven sections", which are being studied and built independently but which, upon completion, would constitute a 100-mile network of toll roads stretching south of Pittsburgh to Interstate 68 in West Virginia and west to Pittsburgh International Airport.

While the turnpike has yet to line up funding to construct the northern section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, it has already set aside $292 million. Of that amount, $150 million is to be spent for final design, the rest to acquire rights of way.

The turnpike commission is scheduled to vote on a final design manager next month. All 13 engineering consultants are to be selected by next spring.

The draft environmental impact statement for the northern section of the expressway is available at public places throughout the proposed highway's corridor. The turnpike commission has distributed 225 printed copies of the study, a five-volume document that weighs 17 pounds. It also has sold about 250 copies of the document on CD-ROMs for $10 each.Formal hearings for public or private oral testimony about the environmental study will be held at 2 and 6 p.m. next month on these dates: July 16 at West Mifflin High School, July 23 at Burgwin Elementary School in Hazelwood and July 25 at Pittsburgh Expo Mart in Monroeville. Written comments may be sent to the turnpike commission, P.O. Box 67676, Harrisburg 17106-7676, and must be received by Aug. 14.

Other information and status reports shared at yesterday's three-hour meeting included:

Six firms are engaged in final design of the other unfinished section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway between Brownsville and Uniontown. (Thirty-five miles are open in Fayette and Washington counties.)

Early next year, letters will be sent to owners of all properties to be purchased, whole or in part. Final design and plans are to be finished by late 2004, but construction could start in 2005 if the turnpike commission finds funding for the 15-mile section.

The draft environmental impact statement is expected to be finished next spring for the section of Southern Beltway on an alignment roughly following the Washington-Allegheny county line between Route 22 and I-79. An alternative alignment, known locally as "B-2," is being recommended to circumvent McDonald. Hearings are to be held in the fall.

The majority of field work is finished and public meetings will be held in the fall to show residents the latest detailed alternatives for alignments for the Southern Beltway section between I-79 and the Mon-Fayette Expressway, with a major interchange south of Finleyville.