 
|
|||||||||
              
|
Mon-Fay Expressway funding plan touted Bill would set aside $106 million per year Tuesday, October 09, 2001 By Marylynne Pitz, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
To ensure completion of the Mon-Fayette Expressway, a state legislator said yesterday that he will introduce a bill to set aside $106 million in federal highway funds each year for the next 25 years.
State Sen. J. Barry Stout, D-Bentleyville, who represents the 46th Senatorial District and lives in Washington County, said the money will fund Plan H, which stands for highways.
At a news conference in Point State Park, Downtown, Stout said the bill is supported by state Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, state Sen. Sean Logan, D-Monroeville, and state Rep. Jeff Habay, R-Shaler.
Allegheny County Executive Jim Roddey also attended to express support for the measure.
The designated funds would represent about 8 percent of the $1.3 billion in highway money the federal government appropriates for Pennsylvania each year. It is allocated under a federal law called TEA-21, short for Transportation Equity Act for the 21st century.
Pennsylvania would use the designated money to float a $1 billion bond issue through its turnpike commission, Roddey said.
When it is completed, the Mon-Fayette Expressway will stretch from Pittsburgh through the Mon Valley and western Fayette County to Interstate 68 at Cheat Lake in West Virginia.
Another part of the plan is to build a 30-mile Southern Beltway that would have three sections: the Findlay Connector, linking Pittsburgh International Airport to U.S. Route 22; a 13-mile link from U.S. 22 to I-79 near the Allegheny-Washington county line; and an 11-mile highway from there to the Mon-Fayette Expressway near Finleyville.
Joe Kirk, chairman of the Mon Fayette Expressway & Southern Beltway Alliance, said legislators are trying to ensure construction of the Findlay Connector as well as portions of the expressway that connect Brownsville to Uniontown in Fayette County and Route 51 to Monroeville and Pittsburgh.
An 18-mile stretch of the road from Charleroi to Route 51 is expected to open in March, Kirk said.
City Councilman Bob O'Connor calls the northernmost part of the Mon-Fayette Expressway the Squirrel Hill Bypass because he believes it will eliminate congestion at the Squirrel Hill Tunnel and remove traffic from Phillips, Greenfield and Second avenues.
Roddey said there is "no more important economic development project."
Since the demise of the steel industry in the 1980s, the Mon Valley has lost 250,000 jobs.
The valley has "been wounded and we haven't healed it yet and this is the best medicine we could find. We'll never bring the Mon Valley back without proper access," Roddey said.
|
||||||||
