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Transportation wish list far exceeds available funding
Friday, August 03, 2001 By Joe Grata, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Arterial roads don't get much worse than Route 51, one of the southern gateways to Pittsburgh.
Even as the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation is finishing a $4 million resurfacing of the four-lane highway between Pleasant Hills and the Liberty Tunnels, sidewalks are disintegrated, utility poles sit only inches away from traffic, lanes are still narrow and accident rates remain among the highest in the state.
In addition, the majority of buildings in the corridor are vacant or dilapidated.
Representatives of Economic Development South, a coalition of residents, officials and businesses mainly from Whitehall and Brentwood who want to transform Route 51 into a tree-lined boulevard, made their inaugural plea for money yesterday before the Public Participation Panel which is helping to decide future transportation funding.
"Without this redevelopment, this area is economically dead," John F. Slater Jr., chairman of the development group, testified during the hearing held at the Regional Enterprise Tower, Downtown.
If the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission, the regional transportation planning agency, had $3 billion a year instead of $225 million for roads, bridges, transit and trails in Allegheny County alone, then Slater and dozens of others would have left the building happy.
Economic Development South asked for $18 million to upgrade Route 51 and jump-start its hopes to rejuvenate a pocket of the South Hills.
Joe Kirk, who chairs groups advocating construction of the Mon-Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway toll road projects, asked for $106 million a year to build pieces of the toll road to Downtown Pittsburgh and to Pittsburgh International Airport.
Panels affiliated with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission in all eight counties it represents have been gathering testimony about how to divide a too-small pie to satisfy all transportation needs and interests. The hearings are a biennial ritual as the commission, and then the state, revise four-year and 12-year plans that determine which transportation projects will move forward and how much money will be available for each.
The current hearings are part of a process that will continue for another year until the plans become official and money begins to flow. The state Transportation Commission will be in Pittsburgh Aug. 23-24 for more public hearings. Both regional and state plans must be finalized by Oct. 1, 2002, the start of the 2002-03 fiscal year for federal funding.
Input yesterday came from a variety of sources, from Monroeville resident Joseph Ryan, who opposed the approval of a new traffic signal at Shackleford Drive for an auto dealer along Business Route 22, to Italo V. Mackin, president of Mackin Engineering, who talked of benefits by continued development of a low-speed maglev people-mover system in Pittsburgh.
Marilyn Skolnick, president of the Allegheny County Transit Council, an advisory group to the Port Authority, said the state needs to eliminate a $75 million statewide limit on transit operating assistance or riders could face future service cuts and fare increases.
County economic development official Lynn Heckman proposed 43 projects on behalf of Allegheny County Chief Executive Jim Roddey, including reconstructing Route 28 from the North Side to Millvale, while two residents testified about the importance of saving St. Nicholas Church in that area.
Harry Finnegan, executive director of the Pittsburgh Downtown Partnership, asked for more money for a stepped-up public information campaign.
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