Greene officials view transit plans
WAYNESBURG – With no public present to offer testimony Wednesday night at a hearing for the state Transportation Improvement Program (TIP), officials reviewed plans for the upcoming four years. The hearing was scheduled to gain public input on developing Greene County’s transportation priorities for the next four years of the state’s 12-year highway plan.
Among those priorities are replacing the Albert Gallatin Bridge -which links Dunkard Township in Greene County with Point Marion Borough in Fayette County – and several other bridges, improvements to the Morrisville Corridor outside Waynesburg, and work on the Greene River Trail project in Greensboro.
Ken Flack with the Southwestern Pennsylvania Commission said that in the last five years, his agency has joined with the county and the state Department of Transportation to combine plans and resources, in order to get more accomplished.
In the upcoming four-year period, which begins with the 2003 federal fiscal year in October, Greene County will receive about $9 million. From 2003 to 2006, the county will receive an estimated $38 million to address the 24 projects contained in the draft TIP, Flack said.
Ann Bargerstock, director of county planning and development, noted that in the draft, 10 county bridges and seven state bridges would be replaced.
She explained that Greene County agreed to place the Albert Gallatin Bridge on its plan so that the Masontown Bridge, which carries Route 21 over the Monongahela River, would be wholly on the Fayette County plan.
Bargerstock said that every other year, county officials review the status of the TIP projects and gain public input on what additional projects should be considered or added. Once a project is started, it may be delayed in the face of a more pressing project, but it cannot be scrapped, she said.
Projects like the Albert Gallatin Bridge replacement not only take longer, but they also consume larger portions of the money available for construction, Flack said.
“Instead of taking little bites out of the money, projects like the Point Marion Bridge can take big bites out of $9 million,” Flack said.
The county is seeking grants to help offset the cost of the bridge replacement, Bargerstock said.
But, if the county is unsuccessful, the money is still budgeted for the bridge work.
Conspicuous in its absence from the TIP plan was the Kiwi Road project, which would link Route 21 to Rolling Meadows Road to serve an anticipated retail development in the area.
Bargerstock said she wasn’t sure why the project wasn’t listed, as it was on previous drafts.
But she said that it might have been removed because it was nominated for a federal budget line item for funding.
Additionally, Bargerstock said enhancement funds allocated for another project will be used to further the Greene River Trail. More than 60 percent of the time, the enhancement funds are used for trail projects, but they also can be used for streetlights, beautification programs and gateway gardens, Flack added.
Also included in the draft plan are replacements of these bridges, among others: Ten Mile Creek Bridge on Route 88, Jefferson Township; the Jefferson Road Bridge on Route 188, Franklin Township; county bridge 87 in Morgan Township; county bridges 4, 12 and 71 in Cumberland Township; county bridge 20 in Greene Township; and county bridge 22 in Jefferson.