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North Shore connector may not happen?


TheGerbil

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The existing portions of the Mon-Fay have already proven to be a money pit. A 17-mile portion completed just 4 years ago is sinking.

Sinking highway costing state

"A 17-mile section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway that opened four years ago in southern Allegheny County is sinking, and the price tag to fix it is rising.

The state Turnpike Commission has spent $619,749 since 2004 to repair sinking pieces of the toll expressway between Route 51 in Jefferson Hills and Interstate 70, and more work is scheduled in 2007. Officials say the highway was built over mines that are collapsing and fill material that isn't supporting the road's weight.

Commissioners won't try to recoup losses from contractors who designed and built the $588 million highway, because they knew the risks when they approved a route through a hilly area riddled with mines, instead of one that would have displaced homeowners."

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The existing portions of the Mon-Fay have already proven to be a money pit. A 17-mile portion completed just 4 years ago is sinking.

Sinking highway costing state

"A 17-mile section of the Mon-Fayette Expressway that opened four years ago in southern Allegheny County is sinking, and the price tag to fix it is rising.

The state Turnpike Commission has spent $619,749 since 2004 to repair sinking pieces of the toll expressway between Route 51 in Jefferson Hills and Interstate 70, and more work is scheduled in 2007. Officials say the highway was built over mines that are collapsing and fill material that isn't supporting the road's weight.

Commissioners won't try to recoup losses from contractors who designed and built the $588 million highway, because they knew the risks when they approved a route through a hilly area riddled with mines, instead of one that would have displaced homeowners."

Such news makes me gunshy of any big transportation project, rail included.

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Yes, this highway must have an end in Pittsburgh. It does not necessarily have to be a freeway. It could become a grand urban boulevard as it enters the city or runs along the rivers. A boulevard is much more urban friendly. A freeway just syphons business out of the city.

I don't think it's been really proven that freeways take business away from the city overall. They do raise the cost of business because of higher parking costs and higher taxes required by the city to maintain services for a flood of suburbanites. But that would more likely change the makeup of businesses than drive them out overall. Businesses that serve city residents would suffer most, while businesses such as large corporations that need a central location might benefit, especially companies large enough to have leverage to get tax exemptions. So quality of life within the city is very likely to decline while costs of living go up because of a highway. Over the longer run it can depress the city by taking away the very things that attract people to it in the first place. That's IMO.

The reason rail transit doesn't have that problem is because it has essentially fixed costs on the city's infastructure, no matter how many people come they are all pedestrians with fairly negligible costs. The most they'll do is drink a lot more coffee and fill up some trash bins. Rail transit from the suburbs, IMO, has a better chance to raise the quality of life even if it raises the costs of living somewhat. Plus, rail transit internalizes the costs of the infastructure by charging a ticket fee, much in the way that a turnpike is supposed to do in theory but doesn't in practice. Turnpikes don't really internalize the cost of the road because they still dump heavy car traffic onto other roads while trains don't. They also cheat commuters because of subsidies to trucking firms (they don't pay a fair share of the costs of the wear and tear they cause to the road) and because they eat through taxpayer money to make ends meet.

And a huge reason to oppose the turnpike in Pittsburgh in particular is the historically low quality of state maintained roads in the city. Pittsburgh has some of the worst state roads in PA, and the worst roads in Pittsburgh are all state roads IMO, and they are all the main routes that lead to and from major highways. The suburban dominated state legislature has been screwing over Pittsburgh and Philly for decades now, and nothing says that they would do things any different if we got even more suburban traffic to contend with.

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