Fitzgerald to drop his expressway opposition
$2B must be used for Mon-Fayette project
Allegheny County Executive Rich Fitzgerald is dropping his opposition to the proposed $2 billion Mon-Fayette Expressway extension from Jefferson Hills to Monroeville because the money can’t be used for any other projects in the Mon Valley.
Mr. Fitzgerald said Friday he would encourage the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission to add the highway to its list of approved Transportation Improvement Projects when it meets in June. Mr. Fitzgerald, secretarytreasurer of the 10-county group, led the move to table the project last month while officials checked whether money for the highway could be used for other Mon Valley projects that would be less expensive and could be accomplished sooner than the 20year highway plan. Mark Compton, CEO of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission, told Mr. Fitzgerald in a letter dated March 31 that the state Legislature specifically earmarked funding for the expressway extension in 2007. The commission was charged with building the 14mile toll road.
If that project doesn’t proceed, Mr. Compton wrote, the money could be used only for other turnpike extensions — not new projects — unless the law were changed. The estimated cost of the highway, which was proposed more than 40 years ago and has gone through several design changes, is now at $2 billion, up from $1.6 billion last year.
“It appears the money can’t be used anywhere else unless the Legislature changes that legislation,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “That
probably isn’t going to happen. Therefore, we’re probably going to accept the project as it was presented.”
Mr. Fitzgerald’s move to put the highway on hold caused a bipartisan backlash from legislators in the Mon Valley, said state Sen. Jay Costa, D-Forest Hills, the Senate minority leader. For a generation, Mon Valley leaders have pushed the highway as a lifeline to recover from the collapse of the steel industry, but only two sections south of Jefferson Hills have been built.
Mr. Costa said there is little interest among his colleagues in changing state law to allow other uses for the money.
“In fact, there’s strong, bipartisan support pushing back against the idea of using the money somewhere else,” Mr. Costa said. “It’s really unleashed a hornets’ nest in the Mon Valley.’’
The reaction from Mon Valley leaders is not surprising, Mr. Fitzgerald said.
“Sure, they want to make sure they get transportation money,” Mr. Fitzgerald said. “They’ve been strong advocates.”
If the expressway extension isn’t built in this region, it’s likely the funds would go elsewhere in the state. something the county executive said he wants to avoid.
“If we don’t get some ability to move that money to other projects in the Mon Valley, I almost feel like we have no choice but to keep it here,” he said.
The first construction on the highway began in northern West Virginia in 1973 and now two segments have been finished, ending in Jefferson Hills.
The last leg was supposed to include a Y to extend it to Monroeville and along the Monongahela River to Pittsburgh.
But opposition from former Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy and the Oakland business community — along with the $4 billion cost — stalled the project in 2009. The turnpike commission revived it with the passage of a transportation funding bill in 2013 and presented a scaled-down design last year that eliminated the leg to Pittsburgh and reduced the size of medians to cut the cost in half.