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Tuesday, July 23, 2002

By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A Washington, D.C., highway advocacy organization has prepared a report outlining benefits and allaying objections to building the 24-mile northern section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway.

The 18-page report says a Y-shaped part of the road between Monroeville and Pittsburgh, constituting a bypass of the traffic-choked Squirrel Hill Tunnel, would offer the greatest relief by reducing rush-hour backups on the Parkway East by as much as 75 percent.

The report claims drivers who would gravitate to the expressway would ease traffic -- not increase it, as opponents have suggested -- by up to 40 percent on city streets including Forbes Avenue, the Boulevard of the Allies, Beechwood Boulevard and Browns Hill Road and 25 percent on Route 51 and in the Liberty Tunnels.

In addition to reducing traffic congestion, the report on extending the Mon-Fayette Expressway beyond its present terminus at Route 51 in Jefferson Hills points to the potential impacts of "enhancing economic vitality, improving public safety and accommodating desirable development."

The Road Information Program, a national nonprofit group supported by businesses, consultants, unions and others who benefit from the road-building industry, released its report yesterday at a news conference in the offices of Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey, who regards the expressway as a transportation priority for the region.

The report was prepared at the behest of the Pennsylvania Highway Information Agency, a Harrisburg-based affiliate of the national organization. Joe Kirk, executive director of the Mon Valley Progress Council, the main supporter of the expressway for three decades, is also the information agency's president.

"This is a confirmation of what many of us have been saying and talking about for years," Roddey said before an aside directed at critics who favor expanding public transit, upgrading old streets and taking measures friendly to the environment.

"When you talk to people interested in bringing manufacturing here but who use trucks to ship product, you can't tell them to haul it on a bus or down a bike trail," he said.

The report was released amid a 101-day public review and comment period about a five-volume environmental impact study and as debate heats up between expressway advocates and people and groups opposed to the project.

"It encourages me to see they're reacting to what we've been saying," said Tom Buchele, director of the University of Pittsburgh-affiliated Environmental Law Clinic, which provides legal counseling to expressway opponents. "The attitude up to now has been that we're essentially irrelevant."

PennFuture spokeswoman Jeanne K. Clark said: "How interesting. A group financed by the folks who make money building highways thinks the Mon-Fayette is a grand idea. The manual they must have worked from, 'How To Lie With Statistics,' isn't cited" as a reference.

The second of three public hearings on the environmental impact study will be held from 1 to 9 p.m. today at Burgwin Elementary School, Hazelwood, where Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy is to testify. Murphy previously laid out a list of conditions he said the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission must meet as expressway developer if it wants to build the toll road in the city.

The final public hearing will be from 1 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Pittsburgh Expo Mart, Monroeville.

Thus far, the turnpike commission has spent about $800 million to build about 35 miles of the expressway, mostly in Washington and Fayette counties. The remaining 35 miles are in planning stages, including the $2 billion section north of Route 51 to the Parkway East.

Frank R. Moretti, director of policy and research for The Road Information Program, noted that in the post-interstate building boom, almost all limited-access highways are now built for connectivity, economic development and special transportation needs.

"The Mon-Fayette Expressway will be a well-designed urban highway," he said, including features ranging from elevating the road past Duck Hollow to preserve riverfront access to depressing it 25 feet below grade behind Second Avenue in Hazelwood, with "lids" supporting parks and open space on surfaces above expressway traffic.

Here are some other points made in the report about the northern section:

Because the project includes building four park-n-ride lots and because the expressway will make it easy to reach them, public transit use should increase.

By improving access, the expressway would help retain and grow 715 existing manufacturers employing 25,000 people in the Mon Valley region.

Drivers traveling on the expressway would be less than half as likely to be killed in a traffic accident than if they made the same trip on city streets.

Building new highways is not outdated transportation policy, as demonstrated by recent new limited-access highway construction in Atlanta, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Phoenix and Orange County, Calif., which has added 51 miles of new toll roads costing $3 billion over the past decade.

Increased travel on expanded roads is mostly the result of drivers switching from less desirable routes and traveling at more convenient times, so the expressway wouldn't generate a substantial increase in the region's trip-making.

The full report is available on The Road Information Program's Web site at http://www.tripnet.org.