Governor voices support for expressway
HARRISBURG – Governor-elect Ed Rendell Tuesday gave southwestern Pennsylvania some good news: Completing the Mon-Fayette Expressway will be a top priority during his administration.
“We are going to do this,” Rendell, who takes office in January, told a group of project supporters at the Capitol.
About 50 lawmakers and business leaders from Allegheny, Fayette, Washington and Westmoreland counties made the eight-hour roundtrip to seek support for a funding strategy called Plan H.
The plan would ensure the timely completion of the entire highway project and the continued advancement of the Southern Beltway. When completed, the Mon-Fayette Expressway will stretch from West Virginia to Allegheny County. The Southern Beltway is a branch of the road near Pittsburgh International Airport.
The group spent the morning attending strategy meetings and, in the afternoon, they visited legislators’ offices to lobby for their cause. The highway project is competing with many other transportation proposals around the state for funding in the next cycle.
While Rendell didn’t say where the $1.7 billion or so needed to complete the expressway would come from, he did promise to work with leaders to get the project completed.
The newly elected governor plans to sit down with leaders from the region at an economic summit in southwestern Pennsylvania in February in order to hammer out a legislative agenda. Finishing the Mon-Fayette Expressway is in the best interest of the state, he said.
“As mayor of Philadelphia, I learned that transportation and economic development are inextricably linked together,” he said. “I believe this project will have benefits in Lebanon County, Scranton and Philadelphia because of the tax dollars it will bring in. People will be put to work and taken off welfare rolls. There are many positive things.”
Most lawmakers support the project, which began about a decade ago and is about half complete. But considerable financial support is needed to finish the project.
That’s where the Plan H comes in. The plan calls for a set aside amount of $106 million per year in federal highway funding to the state to support bonds for the completion of the expressway and advancement of the southern beltway. The designation would represent approximately eight percent of highway funding to the state. The plan was created about three years ago by the business development group Mon Valley Progress Council.
“There’s a lot of competing interests for funding so we have to stay together and stay focused on our goal of getting Plan H approved,” said Vincent A. Vicites, chairman of the Fayette County Commissioners, who attended Tuesday’s meeting.
“If Plan H is adopted in the next year it would put us right into place to keep this thing on schedule,’ he added.
The group knows it has much work to do. Not all legislators are completely sold on the plan at the moment.
“I support additional funding for these projects,” said Sen. Barry Stout, D-Bentleyville, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Transportation Committee. “But you can’t get locked into just one plan. You have to have flexibility.”