Fifty Years Later, A Highway Still Under Construction

Almost 50 years after ground was broken for the Mon-Fayette Expressway project, construction of several more segments of the still uncompleted highway between the Mon Valley and Pittsburgh’s eastern suburbs is continuing.

The expressway project has been talked about since the 1970s as a way to improve the fortunes of struggling Mon Valley communities by making it easier and quicker to get to Pittsburgh. However, it has seen a number of delays as the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and the state legislature have scrambled to find the funding to finish it.

When completed, the toll road will travel 68 miles from Morgantown, W.Va., north through Fayette, Washington, and Allegheny counties, and end at Monroeville, where it will connect with I-376. Three phases of the project have been completed since ground was broken in 1988 encompassing a 54-mile section from I-68 in West Virginia to Route 51 in Jefferson Hills, Allegheny County. The final piece opened to traffic in 2012.

Lack of funding delayed the project’s completion significantly, as did opposition from communities in the path of the more-populated final section, which was originally planned to end in Pittsburgh. The project was redesigned to connect to Monroeville, and after funding sources were identified, the Turnpike Commission began working to complete the road between Route 51 and I-376.

But because of continuing funding availability issues, the project was divided into two sections – north of the Monongahela River and south of the river. Two sections of the eight-mile, $1.3 billion project south of the Monongahela, from Route 51 to Duquesne, are now under construction and a third will soon begin. Contracts for four more sections of the southern part of this phase are still to be awarded. The sections now under construction should be open in the fall.

Funding must still be identified to construct the section north of the Monongahela River to Monroeville and finally finish the project. The timeline is uncertain as costs have continued to escalate during the years since the first 48 miles were completed at a cost of $1.69 billion. The project is funded through tolls and the state oil franchise tax, and there has been much discussion of costs vs. benefits of the project, which has contributed to the delays.