Meeting to focus on toll roads to link Pittsburgh area with W.Va.

PITTSBURGH (AP) — The Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission hopes to meet next month with companies interested in a partnership to complete a network of toll roads connecting the Pittsburgh area with West Virginia.

The commission has already spent $1 billion building about 40 miles of the projected 100-mile network, but officials estimate that it will cost about $5 billion to complete the roads that state lawmakers tasked the commission with completing more than 20 years ago.

The roads still to be built include the 24-mile Mon-Fayette Expressway project in Allegheny County and two Southern Beltway projects that would connect to an existing portion of the expressway in Washington County.

Once completed, the 100-mile network of limited access toll roads will connect Pittsburgh to Morgantown, W.Va., and include a spur to Pittsburgh International Airport about 10 miles west of the city and another to Monroeville and the city’s eastern suburbs.

The turnpike commission will hold the meeting Sept. 17 in Harrisburg.

Details of how the turnpike commission will partner with a private company or companies are not clear. The meeting next month is the first concrete step the commission has taken since announcing in March that it was studying a public-private partnership.

At the time, the commission indicated that it hoped to find companies willing to finance, design, build, operate or maintain the remaining sections of expressway.