May 23, 2003 4 min read

The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is working on final designs and acquiring property for the Uniontown-to-Brownsville section of the Mon/Fayette Expressway. The political will and public support are squarely behind this project and have been for the past decade. It is hard for some to remember that it was once in jeopardy. It is equally difficult for many to remember without scouring old newspaper clippings why that was. But it is important and timely to remember as local history can easily be rewritten, especially when candidates are on the campaign trail.

Such is the case with former state senator and current Democratic nominee for county commissioner, J. William Lincoln.

Lincoln can rightly brag about the many transportation improvement projects along Routes 119 and 51, the Uniontown Bypass and the Mason-Dixon Link of the expressway during his tenure in office. But the Uniontown-to-Brownsville section is not one of them.

During a recent meeting with the editorial board, Lincoln said that Brownsville section was never in jeopardy. We questioned him a bit, but he stuck with that scenario. We were a bit dumbstruck by his statements.

I can recall vividly in October of 1992 covering transportation for this newspaper, when executive editor Mike Ellis walked over to my cubicle with a paragraph circled at the bottom of a Brownsville Chamber of Commerce story that alluded to a conclusion reached by a consensus of lawmakers and environmental and transportation folks. They had that summer held a meeting at the Meadowlands and decided to slice the Mon/Fayette into four separate transportation projects. They concluded that the Uniontown-to-Brownsville section wasn’t needed.

Could this be true?

After many interviews and much legwork, I confirmed that it was. The Uniontown-to-Brownsville section was dropped so as not to impede progress of the sections that were fast tracked: the Mason- Dixon Link in Lincoln’s district and Interstate-70-to-Route 51 in Sen. J. Barry Stout’s district.

In the initial news story, Lincoln espoused that instead of the Brownsville expressway section a deadly, two-lane Route 40 would be improved and with its historical designation would become a tremendous tourist attraction. Further he questioned why anyone would want to drive all the way to Washington County and then backtrack to Route 51 if they were heading toward Pittsburgh. And he doubted that the Route 51-to-Pittsburgh segment would ever proceed.

The day after the story was published, Lincoln came into the newsroom with color charts to show all the state money that had been pumped into our roads. The point was that he didn’t believe the goal of the expressway was to connect Uniontown with Pittsburgh.

The implication was that we should be grateful that the state had fixed a few treacherous roads and stop dreaming for what we had been promised.

This newspaper faced tremendous pressure from local leaders to stop asking questions and demanding answers. We were expected to remain silent so as not to jeopardize the Mason-Dixon Link, the expressway section south to the West Virginia state line.

We couldn’t and wouldn’t. We launched one of the most intense public service campaigns that we have embarked upon, and we gained then Gov. Robert Casey’s ear. Casey, a long-time supporter of the expressway, was not aware of the deal that cut part of it out.

He traveled to Uniontown, held a public meeting where people packed the room and for several hours pleaded with the governor, who listened to each one. He later ordered his transportation secretary to host meetings of key leaders, explore the viability of the project. The end result was the Brownsville section was put back in the mix.

What we need to remember is that it’s the people who are making this road happen. Not Mr. Lincoln who doubted it was necessary.

Luanne Traud is the Herald-Standard’s editorial page editor. E-mail: ltraud@heraldstandard.com.