Penn Future - PennFuture Reports - Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future: Working to Protect Pennsylvania's Environment and Economy

The Citizens Plan

An Alternative to the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission's Plan to Complete the Mon-Fayette Toll Road

Click these links for the full report:
Citizens' Plan (this document is 3,602kb and may take some time to download, please be patient.)
Citizens' Plan Map
Citizens' Plan Costs
(This document is in Adobe Acrobat format. To view it, you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have Adobe Acrobat Reader you may download it for free from Adobe.) .

In January 2002, Citizens for Pennsylvania's Future (PennFuture) assembled a group of national and local experts -- engineers, architects and planners -- and interested citizens to begin work on an alternative to the Mon-Fayette toll road. After touring the Mon Valley , its major arterial roads, town centers and former industrial sites (brownfields), the group gathered to brainstorm possible solutions that would meet the region's transportation and traffic needs, revitalize brownfields and strengthen communities, while avoiding the harmful environmental and economic impacts that would be caused by the toll road.

A plan began to take shape. This plan draws on the conclusions of a number of published regional transportation and land use studies. A draft was presented to various local officials and community groups to obtain feedback and fine-tune the plan. Those efforts are ongoing and this report, while still a work-in-progress, contains the fruits of this collaborative effort.

This collaborative -- and the development of the Citizens' Plan -- are needed to rectify the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission's failure to adequately consider alternatives, despite the requirement under federal law (the National Environmental Policy Act or NEPA) that the Turnpike must consider alternatives to its proposed toll road plan. The Turnpike's Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) on the toll road fails to ad-equately consider alternatives even though the Federal Highway Administration states that the DEIS "must discuss a range of reasonable alternatives." And despite significant requests from the City of Pittsburgh and local citizens that a combined alternative including public transit and upgraded existing roads be included, the Turnpike dropped all non-toll road alternatives six years ago with scant consideration, submitting a DEIS based only on tolled, limited access highways.

The Citizens' Plan provides an analysis of the alternatives the Turnpike refused to adequately consider and proposes to meet the combined transportation needs of the Mon Valley through three major components:

A 62-mile network of urban boulevards within the Mon Valley that will enhance safety and create incentives for economic redevelopment of existing town centers and brownfields;
Improved connections to interstate highways which will increase the mobility of vehicles that transport goods from the Valley to outside markets; and
Three major new transit investments that will reduce traffic congestion and increase real estate values in the Mon Valley .

The benefits of this plan over the toll road include:

Substantial investment in the deteriorated roads and infrastructure of Mon Valley communities;
A balance in achieving improved mobility and safety and enhanced access to Mon Valley communities;
Better traffic management by providing commuters with more choices in reaching employment and education centers; Increased real estate values within established communities;
Less sprawl, thereby preserving the region?s forests, streams, hillsides and farms; and
A better balance between the potential for economic development of the riverfronts and sustaining their recreational value.

The total costs of the road improvement portion of the Citizens' Plan are estimated to be nearly $1.2 billion, less than two-thirds of the estimated toll road costs. If the toll road were built from Route 51 to I-376, the upgrades to major arterial roads contemplated by the Citizens' Plan would need to be undertaken anyway. However, the $1.9 billion toll road estimate fails to account for any such costs.

Transit improvements consisting of new light rail, two transit extensions and multi-use terminals are estimated at an additional $1.5 billion. While total costs of the Citizens' Plan exceed the current estimated cost to complete the toll road, our plan is far more comprehensive, provides significantly more value to the region, and is thereby more cost effective than the toll road.

Funding for the Citizens' Plan is proposed to come from a variety of sources including federal, state and local programs, bonding and value-capture financing.