UNITED WE STAND

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AN OVERVIEW 

     Highways are an integral part of our lives and livelihoods. In southwestern Pennsylvania, the development of two new expressways by the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC) would have significant impacts on the quality of life. Completion of the Mon/Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway projects will create about 100 miles of new limited-access roadway to Pittsburgh's south and west, in Allegheny, Washington and Fayette counties.

      The Mon/Fayette would stretch about 65 miles south from Pittsburgh through the Monongahela River Valley and western Fayette County to Interstate 68 near Morgantown, W.Va. It would improve access to redevelopment sites in the economically depressed Mon River towns where the steel and coal industries once flourished. It also would provide faster and safer travel options for through traffic, particularly commercial vehicles, that now use existing north-south arteries such as Pa. Route 51, Pa. Route 88, Pa. Route 837, and Pa. Route 857, as well as U.S. Route 40 (the National Road).

      The Southern Beltway would form an arc about 30 miles long with a radius approximately 15 miles out from Pittsburgh's Golden Triangle. It would improve access and east-west mobility between the mid-Mon Valley, at the Mon/Fayette Expressway near Finleyville, and Pittsburgh International Airport at the Pa. Route 60 Expressway.

      These highways are among a number of new toll roads the state legislature authorized the PTC to design, construct and operate when it passed Act 61 of 1985. The long-term benefit of assigning these new highways to the PTC is that once they are built, tax dollars would not be required to maintain them. The PTC is responsible for 500-plus miles of highway and is able to maintain its system with toll revenue.       

      In western Pennsylvania, completed Act 61 projects include the 17-mile Beaver Valley Expressway in Beaver and Lawrence counties and the 13-mile Greensburg Bypass in Westmoreland County. The Beaver Valley and Greensburg projects, which opened in 1992 and 1993 respectively, were the first expansions of the Pennsylvania Turnpike system since the 110-mile Northeast Extension between Philadelphia and Scranton was completed in 1957.

      Pennsylvania Act 26 of 1991 added the 30-mile Southern Beltway to the list of new toll roads. It also established, for the first time, a continuous source of state funding to help the PTC advance expansion projects. Since 1992 the PTC has been receiving 14 percent of the state's Oil Company Franchise Tax revenue, approximately $40 million annually. An additional $28 million per year for Turnpike expansion projects, from vehicle registration revenues, was committed in Act 3 of 1997. By establishing these funding streams for the PTC, state lawmakers acknowledged that the agency could not be expected to continue to build new toll roads while properly maintaining its existing system, much of which dates to 1940, without outside funding.                                                    

     Federal lawmakers have come to the same realization. Before 1987, no federal tax dollars could be used for the development of new toll roads. Under the 1991 U.S. Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act (ISTEA), the PTC received $23.8 million in direct federal funding for the Mon/Fayette Expressway projects. The new six-year Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century (TEA 21), effective through September 2003, provides $20 million for the Mon/Fayette Expressway from Uniontown to Brownsville and $5 million for the Pennsylvania portion of the Mon/Fayette Expressway's Mason Dixon Link. The Mon/Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway projects, including the West Virginia portion of the Mon/Fayette Expressway, also are eligible to compete for federal funds available under the National Corridor Planning and Development Program. TEA 21 provides $690 million for the funding pool - $138 million annually for each of the last five years of the bill. Discretionary grants for Year One of the five-year program were announced on May 27, 1999. The Turnpike Commission received $4 million for Mon/Fayette Expressway construction in Washington and Allegheny counties. The West Virginia Department of Transportation received $3 million to advance construction of its 4.2 miles of the Mon/Fayette’s 12-mile Mason Dixon Link. The Turnpike Commission is attempting to procure additional federal and state dollars to help cover the cost of designing and building new toll roads. Turnpike officials also are exploring new, innovative financing options, including participation by the private sector. 

      To ensure that the Mon/Fayette Expressway and Southern Beltway projects qualify for federal funds, the Commission is following planning guidelines established under the 1969 National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Section 404 of the federal Clean Water Act and the 1991 U.S. Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act. These regulations mandate that major transportation projects be developed in an environmentally sensitive manner that addresses input from the public and environmental resource agencies.

      Three pieces of the Mon/Fayette Expressway system are in operation, all south of Interstate 70. The newest, opened March 1, 2000, is the northern 6.2 miles of the Mon/Fayette’s 12-mile Mason Dixon Link south of Uniontown that eventually will link with I-68. The PTC will open the bottom 1.6 miles in Pennsylvania when the 4.2-mile West Virginia side is completed. West Virginia Department of Transportation’s Division of Highways awarded its first construction contract in October 1999 and is expected to finish the 4.2 miles in approximately five years.

      The northern 6.2 miles of the Mason Dixon Link connects to the four-mile, non-tolled Pa. Route 43 Expressway, which was built by Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) and opened in November 1992 as the Chadville Demonstration Project. The third piece of the Mon/Fayette system in operation is the six-mile California Toll Road (Turnpike 43) between Interstate 70 and U.S. Route 40, also built by PennDOT and turned over to the PTC upon its opening in October 1990. Existing transitional expressways at both ends of the California Toll Road (including Pa. Route 88) and at the northern end of the Chadville project (U.S. Route 119) also would serve as parts of the Mon/Fayette Expressway.