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Mon-Fay toll road drawing critics
Thursday, October 18, 2001 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Pennsylvania Turnpike officials got an earful about the proposed Mon-Fayette Expressway last night in Pittsburgh.
Five Hazelwood, Glen Hazel and Greenfield groups, along with about two dozen residents, expressed opposition to the proposed toll road during a public meeting that drew more than 200 people to Burgwin Elementary School.
It was the last of three meetings convened by Mayor Tom Murphy, who said he wants to gauge the neighborhood reaction to the turnpike's plan to build the toll road along the north shore of the Monongahela River.
Five miles of a northern, 24-mile section starting at Route 51 in Jefferson Hills would lie within the city limits, using a complex interchange to tie into Second Avenue, the Parkway East and Bates Street in South Oakland.
Although City Council has already endorsed the Mon-Fayette Expressway, Murphy said he would announce his position in February or March, when the turnpike and consultants are expected to have an environmental study ready for public review.
Murphy said the choices are to support the project as planned; oppose it; or try to encourage changes, such as a different alignment or building it as a boulevard rather than a limited-access highway.
Once the turnpike commission holds its own public hearings next year and wins environmental approval from the federal government, it will be empowered to begin final engineering and to acquire property for eventual construction.
Although bulldozers aren't likely to start digging for the Mon-Fayette Expressway in the city for at least six more years, "It will be difficult to change plans," Murphy said, if the Federal Highway Administration issues a "record of decision" late next year.
"What we need to do is reach a conclusion collectively, as a city, as to what we want to do," Murphy said, claiming the turnpike has yet to meet "six conditions I set in a 1996 letter" before he would be supportive of the Mon-Fayette Expressway.
In addition to local groups and residents expressing opposition, former Allegheny County planning director Ray Reaves, now a private urban planning consultant, represented eight organizations with issues of their own. They include the Group Against Smog and Pollution, Citizens for Alternatives to New Toll Roads, and the Riverlife Task Force.
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