4 key bridge rehabs added to state road plan, but aid is uncertain
Pennsylvania has added four major bridge rehabilitations and numerous road paving projects in the Pittsburgh area to the updated 12-year transportation program, clearing the way for that work to proceed to final design and construction.
But with the lack of vehicles on the road due to the COVID-19 pandemic and no extension yet of federal funding for transportation that expires in September, it’s unclear how soon any construction could begin.
“Where this goes, your guess is as good as mine,” said Cheryl Moon-Sirianni, the state Department of Transportation’s district executive for Allegheny, Beaver and Lawrence counties.
“What we have in there right now is our best guess today. We’ll have to see what happens.”
The State Transportation Commission is required by law to update the state’s 12-year program every two years, adding new projects that are nearly ready for construction to replace others that have been completed. The revision approved last week “anticipates $64.8 billion being available over the next 12 years for improvements to roads, bridges, transit systems, airports and railroads,” according to a news release from PennDOT headquarters in Harrisburg. The plan adopted two years ago called for $61.9 billion.
In the first four years, the spending breaks down like this: $11.4 billion for state highway and bridge projects; $9.4 billion for public transit; $321 million for multimodal projects; $228 million for rail freight; and $138 million for aviation.
In this area, the plan adds major rehabilitation projects for the Highland Park, West End, Tarentum and McKees Rocks bridges plus maintenance projects for McKnight Road, Business Route 22, Route 286 in Plum and Route 48 in Monroeville. The bridge work, in particular, is long overdue, Ms. Moon-Sirianni said.
“These are major river crossings and many of them haven’t been done since the 1980s,” she said.
Despite the uncertain future,
she said engineers will proceed with final designs on those projects and others so they are ready when funding becomes available.
Ms. Moon-Sirianni said most of the updated plan was developed before the pandemic reached this area in March and led to a stay-athome order from Gov. Tom Wolf. That caused a sharp decline in gasoline tax revenue, which the state uses to pay a large portion of road improvements.
Even without the pandemic, Ms. Moon-Sirianni said, the state expects tight road budgets for the next several years. Last year, the state decided to shift $3.15 billion over nine years to improve interstate highways and avoid a potential cutback in federal funds if those roads continued to deteriorate, leaving less money for local roads.
As a result, the 12-year program consists of almost all needed maintenance work and no projects to provide increased capacity.
“There’s not a lot of glamorous stuff in there,” she said. “It’s all for system preservation and safety of the public.”
Projects such as widening Route 286 in Plum to add turning lanes and ease congestion have been proposed for years, but they keep being pushed back by preservation and safety work.
“We just don’t have enough money to address all the projects we’d like to do,” Ms. Moon-Sirianni said. “We’re still hopeful a federal transportation bill will come through to help.”