PITTSBURGH City seeks alternative to expressway project

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- The city is asking Pennsylvania and federal officials to review a more costly alternative for the final leg of a $4 billion expressway -- the second most expensive highway project in the country next to Boston's "Big Dig."
Pittsburgh City Council on Monday approved a resolution asking the Federal Highway Administration and Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission to evaluate an environmental group's proposal that would replace the planned final 24-mile stretch of the Mon-Fayette Expressway with expanded regional highways and new mass transit.
Pittsburgh Mayor Tom Murphy has opposed the last section of the development of the northern section of the highway in Pittsburgh. The road, which would stretch 70 miles from near Morgantown, W.Va., to Pittsburgh, has been touted as a way to reinvigorate economically downtrodden Mon Valley communities while helping reduce congestion east of Pittsburgh.
Construction on the highway began in the early 1970s. About $1.9 billion is needed to connect Pittsburgh and its eastern suburbs to Large, about 15 miles southeast of Pittsburgh, where the toll road now ends. Opponents of that project favor spending $2.7 billion on the alternative proposal by the environmental group PennFuture.
Federal and state highway spokesmen said the agencies were reviewing alternative plans.