Lawmakers look to put 376 project in fast lane

By Jeanne Starmack

NEW CASTLE, Pa. — Along Pa. Route 60 in Lawrence County, the signs proclaim: Future 376 corridor.

They’ve been there since 2005, recalls Dan Vogler, Lawrence County commissioner.

Talk of renaming Route 60 and the rest of a route that begins in Monroeville, Pa., started many years before those signs went up, Vogler said.

By the end of this year, it may finally happen.

The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation plans to ask the Federal Highway Administration for the Interstate 376 designation.

That’s good news, officials say, for travelers and for area businesses as a route that has four to five names, depending on which stretch of it you’re on, becomes an easily recognizable interstate on the map.

Companies considering the area when it comes time to locate their businesses or do business with companies here will no longer think there’s no clear way from point A to point B.

They’ll see an interstate running through the area that can be reached via an exit off Interstate 80 in Mercer County or an exit off the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Allegheny County, with a straight shot to the Pittsburgh airport in between.

“Pittsburgh International Airport is currently the only major airport not on a federal interstate and, for years, this has hurt our region’s efforts to attract new companies,” said U.S. Rep. Jason Altmire of McCandless, D-4th.

Altmire has been advocating for the designation in Washington. He calls the corridor “a powerful economic development tool” for western Pennsylvania.

The future corridor begins in Monroeville off the turnpike exit there as Interstate 376. It’s also Pa. Route 22 and Route 22/30 to the Point in Pittsburgh.

Heading south through the Fort Pitt Tunnel, the road the corridor will follow is Interstate 279. It is Route 22/30 also, until it becomes Route 60 near the airport. It remains Route 60 into Beaver, Lawrence and, finally, Mercer counties.

Once the route is redesignated, it will become Interstate 376 the whole way, Vogler said.

Not only will it simplify driving directions, it also will allow PennDOT to obtain more federal funds to maintain the route, he said.

The part of Route 60 that’s a toll road, in Beaver County, will remain so, Vogler added.

Before the FHA will designate the new interstate, parts of the route have to be brought up to federal highway standards, Vogler said.

One trouble spot is at the intersection of Route 60 and U.S. Route 422 in Lawrence County where the north and south lanes narrow to one lane each way, he said. The road has to be widened there.

Vogler said that even if the work is not complete, the interstate designation can be obtained as long as improvements are in the design stages.

Altmire obtained $750,000 in last year’s federal budget for improving the intersection, according to information provided by his office.

starmack@vindy.com